The oldest woman in the world, 115-year-old Marie Bremont of France, has died.

Mrs Bremont died at her retirement home in Cande, in the Maine-et-Loire region about 240km west of Paris, according to French media reports.

Staff members of the retirement home said she died in her sleep.

Mrs Bremont spent part of the past century living in Paris, married to a railway worker, who died during World War I.

Always happy

She then moved out to the Atlantic coast, where she got married a second time, to a taxi driver, who died in 1967.

"I had two good husbands. I have always been happy," she told reporters at 115th birthday celebrations last April 25.

She had no children.

Mrs Bremont was considered the world's oldest person since the death of Eva Morris, of Britain, in November, four days before her 115th birthday.

The oldest woman of all times, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, was another French woman, Jeanne Calment, who died 4 August 1997, at age 122 years and 164 days.