THE RICHEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD
Havingentire– the L’oréallife, avoided Liliane heiress publicity Bettencourtand the her
world’s richest woman – made headlines worldwide in her old age, when she became embroiled in a family dispute about her capacity to manage her affairs, and a political scandal. At the end of a criminal case brought by Bettencourt’s daughter, a society photographer named François-marie Banier was found guilty of exploiting her frail state. Over the years she had, it turned out, given him cash and assets worth up to s1.3bn. During his trial, it emerged that she’d also handed envelopes stuffed with cash to politicians. With even President Nicolas Sarkozy suspected of accepting illegal campaign funds from her, L’affaire Bettencourt gripped France for years, and though Sarkozy was eventually cleared, it was a big embarrassment to his administration.
In court, Bettencourt was portrayed as a mentally enfeebled old woman. But with a s33bn (£29bn) fortune, she’d been a powerful figure in French society, said The New York Times – “regal, a tireless socialite, who loved parties, and jewels and haute couture”. With homes all over the world, she lived mainly in a mansion at Neuilly-sur-seine, outside Paris, filled with works of art by Mondrian, Picasso and Matisse. She hosted glittering soirées, and gave millions to the arts, and other causes. Possibly, the money was intended to atone for her family’s unsavoury past, said The Guardian: her father – the source of the family fortune – had been a Nazi sympathiser who, in 1940, founded the anti-semitic Revolutionary Social Movement, backed a violent fascist group called La Cagoule (The Hood), and acquired property in Germany that had been seized from Jews. After the War, he was nearly prosecuted as a collaborator, but was saved thanks to the efforts of powerful friends – including André Bettencourt, Liliane’s future husband. André had himself written pro-nazi propaganda in the 1930s, and had also been a member of La Cagoule. Towards the end of the War, however, he’d joined the Resistance: as a result, he was awarded the Croix de Geurre, and was hailed as a hero. He then embarked on a political career that saw him serve as a minister in several governments.
Liliane’s father was Eugène Schueller – a chemist with an entrepreneurial streak who, in 1909, had invented a hair dye that, for the first time, offered women a range of colours. Her mother died when she was five. The apple of her father’s eye, Liliane grew up in a grand apartment on the Left Bank, with tutors and servants. Aged 15, she had a brief apprenticeship at L’oréal – but she never worked. By the time she inherited the firm from her father, in 1957, she was married to Bettencourt and he sat on the board in her stead (until his Nazi past became public). Meanwhile, L’oréal continued to grow, with new products (including the first brush-out hairspray, Elnett) and a host of acquisitions, including Garnier and Lancôme. It was in the late 1980s that she struck up a friendship with François-marie Banier. He took her to parties, and she lavished him with gifts – including an island in the Seychelles. These, she said, were to repay him for the pleasure his friendship brought her. Her daughter, Françoise, however, was convinced that Banier had an unhealthy influence over her mother, and after her father’s death, in 2007, she sued Banier, and started proceedings to have her mother declared incompetent. In the course of all this, it transpired that Bettencourt’s butler had been recording the heiress’s conversations with Banier and her advisors. These tapes showed that she had been keeping millions in secret accounts to avoid tax. Meanwhile, her accountant revealed she’d paid tens of thousands in cash to various politicians, including Eric Woerth, a finance minister whose department approved a s30m tax rebate for her. He denied wrongdoing but resigned nevertheless.
She is survived by Françoise. A talented pianist and an intellectual, Françoise converted to Judaism after marrying Jean-pierre Meyers, the grandson of a rabbi who was murdered at Auschwitz.