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Screengrab via 20minutes.fr

At 100 years old, this French woman drinks, dances, and has run the same bar for half a century

Marie-Louise Wirth wouldn’t dream of giving up her bar in northern France.

MARIE-LOUISE WIRTH wouldn’t dream of giving up her bar in northern France, even if many of the 100-year-old’s regulars have passed away.

The tall, blue-eyed proprietor, known to locals as Marie-Lou, also has seen little reason to modernise the brick-fronted tavern with lace curtains in the town of Isbergues near the Belgian border.

“It’s been like this for 50 years,” Wirth said, wiping the same Art Deco countertop she did as a 14-year-old when she began working in the bar for her father back in 1931.

“They’re all surprised there’s no beer pump or coffee machine, but they don’t remember the old days, because there wasn’t a beer pump or a coffee machine,” says the sprightly centenarian, who keeps her grey hair close-cropped and wears no makeup, except for a hint of red lipstick.

The tiny bar – only around 20 square metres (200 square feet) – has no name.

“If you have good beer you don’t need a name,” says Wirth, who likewise has no use for the internet, a cellphone or credit card.

Never married and childless, Wirth took over the establishment when her father died in 1954 and she was 37.

Those were the days when customers ordered sweet wines like Byrrh and Dubonnet, as well as absinthe or pastis, the anise-flavoured spirit that is still broadly popular in France.

But the country has seen a sharp decline in bars since their heyday in the 1960s when they numbered around 600,000, a figure that has shrunk to fewer than 35,000 today.

Wirth recalls when Isbergues, which now has a population of around 10,000, was home to a steelworks with 6,000 workers. “Back then… there were a hundred bars,” she says without a trace of nostalgia.

‘Only God knows’

Wirth opens the bar at 8:15 every morning, sipping a glass of cherry brandy with her first customer.

Hale and hearty, she calls herself a “little curiosity” who cannot explain her longevity. “How am I supposed to know why I’m like this? Only God knows but he doesn’t speak to me!”

The secret couldn’t be in her diet, she says: “I eat a lot of spicy food… I eat everything I shouldn’t. You give me mayonnaise or jam and I’ll take the mayonnaise. But I don’t have cholesterol!”

What about exercise?

“You know, I live like someone who’s 60 years old. I go out a lot. I like to go dancing. I don’t mind coming home at 2:00 am and waking up at 7:30. I’m not tired.”

And Wirth takes risks that may seem ill-advised for a person of such an advanced age. Her best friend Marie-Claire Legrand confirms that she took up the challenge of a treetop adventure course in the French Caribbean island of Martinique in 2013, and that the two of them have been up in a hot-air balloon.

“I’m a daredevil!” Wirth exclaims. “There’s no point living to do nothing and see nothing.”

Regulars at Wirth’s bar are becoming fewer — “I’ve buried a lot of them,” she says — but she vows to keep going as long as she can.

© AFP 2017

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    Mute David Peate
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    Dec 10th 2017, 3:34 PM

    fair play to her, that’s a life well lived

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    Mute John003
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    Dec 10th 2017, 3:56 PM

    She has very good genes no bad mutations…….Important to choose your parents carefully….

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    Mute Ronan McDermott
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    Dec 10th 2017, 3:46 PM

    Good read

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    Mute Nigel cronly
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    Dec 10th 2017, 4:16 PM

    So effectively take more chances, dance more dances

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    Mute james lee
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    Dec 10th 2017, 4:14 PM

    She looks as good as our own Mary Lou.

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    Mute kevin
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    Dec 10th 2017, 5:06 PM

    That’s all very well but what are her views on LGBTQ2 rights and Donald trump? That is how we judge everyone these days. Does she have the “right” opinions??

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    Mute james lee
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    Dec 10th 2017, 10:12 PM

    @kevin: cool it kev man.he..

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    Mute Brian O Reilly
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    Dec 10th 2017, 5:21 PM

    Wirth her weight in Gold.

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    Mute Anthony Halpin
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    Dec 10th 2017, 6:27 PM

    In Ireland she’d have been beaten up and robbed long ago.

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    Mute purple rain
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    Dec 10th 2017, 5:37 PM

    and the secret to her longevity is her genetics not that brandy a day.

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    Mute Charles Williams
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    Dec 10th 2017, 10:20 PM

    The number of bars in France has shrunk from around 600,000 to around 35,000, that some shrinkage and Ireland is heading the same way.

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    Mute FlopFlipU
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    Dec 10th 2017, 5:29 PM

    If it were her genes ,how old was her parents when they passed away

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    Mute Misanthrope
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    Dec 10th 2017, 10:13 PM

    I would…

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    Mute Terry Burns
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    Dec 11th 2017, 4:14 AM

    So wòuld I

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