French Woman Aged 91 Gets PhD After 30 Years

📸: Franche Comte

A woman aged 91 has become one of the oldest people in France to gain a PhD after she completed a thesis that she had begun three decades earlier.

Colette Bourlier was awarded the mark of “high distinction” for her work, which she successfully defended on Tuesday before a jury of the University of Franche-Comte in Besancon, eastern France.

“It took a bit of time to write because I took breaks,” Bourlier said, explaining the decades it took her to complete her work.

The thesis was entitled “Immigrant workers in Besancon in the second half of the 20th century.”

It drew on her own experience as a teacher in literacy programmes for immigrants in the eastern French city.

Read the full story via The Guardian: French Woman Aged 91 Gets PhD After 30 Years