Behind “The richest woman in the world”, the story of Liliane Bettencourt, tragically alone heiress

This is the story of a tragically alone woman. First fortune in France, at the head of a cosmetics empire founded by her father, Liliane Bettencourt found herself at the center of a notorious family conflict between 2007 and 2015. The Bettencourt affair made the front pages of all the newspapers.

It must be admitted that the judicial soap opera had all the ingredients to please. An octogenarian billionaire. A high society photographer who receives almost a billion in gifts. A daughter-heiress who cries scandal. And revelations about the links between France’s greatest fortunes and political leaders.

After the documentary series The Bettencourt case: scandal between the richest woman in the world At Netflix, it is up to director Thierry Klifa to take an interest in this family and political fresco. His feature film The richest woman in the world. with Isabelle Huppert and Laurent Lafitte, in theaters since October 29, is inspired by the relationship between the billionaire and his capricious friend.

Splendors and miseries of the French bourgeoisie

1987. The magazine Egocentric – cult episodic magazine – dedicates a portrait to Liliane Bettencourt. A sober photograph showing the 65-year-old billionaire, dressed simply in a shirt, her arms barely crossed and her gaze vacant. The photo is signed by a certain François-Marie Banier.

The socialite and billionaire photographer, writer and artist meet during this photo shoot. Charismatic and unimpressed by the president of L’Oréal, he forces her to change her clothes on multiple occasions and removes, with his thumb, the beige lipstick she is wearing. And he gets it.

“He portrayed her as a big, simple girl, and that moved her deeply. She was Liliane with her soul,” says Claude Delay, close to the family, in the Netflix documentary series.

From this singular encounter a relationship is born that oscillates between admiration, fascination and, his daughter would later say, manipulation. Because, behind the large windows of her large mansion in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the billionaire feels terribly alone.

A surrogate son?

An only child without a mother, Liliane Schueller was born in 1922 and grew up in the shadow of her father Eugène, founder of L’Oréal. A controversial figure, the chemical genius supported La Cagoule, an anti-Semitic group in the 1930s. A membership shared with André Bettencourt, a politician whom Liliane married in 1953. From this distant but cordial union, Françoise, the only daughter of the marriage, was born three years later. Their characters are opposites: the daughter does not like worldly affairs, the mother wants to convert her to the family empire of which she has become the main shareholder.

Faced with these filial misunderstandings, Liliane Bettencourt finds in François-Marie Banier an intimate, confidant, almost substitute son. He accompanies the billionaire on her travels, has regular dinners at her house and is part of her inner circle. Under his spell, she appreciates him for his flamboyance. Corinne Audouin, a journalist for France Inter, claims that when the photographer goes to Neuilly-sur-Seine, “he urinates on the rose bushes, throws his moped into the garden”, which deeply shocks the staff. “In this world there is a kind of respect, almost deference, towards these people,” he explains. “François-Marie Banier comes like a dog in a game of bowling, to turn everything upside down.”

“It’s not bad manners, it’s much more than bad manners, it’s an outrage. And this outrage is something that liberates,” explains Jean-Michel Ribes, theater director and friend of the photographer, in the documentary.

Sincere friend to some, predator to others, the figure of François-Marie Banier is intriguing. As the years go by, the gifts to your address accumulate. Master paintings, life insurance contracts, checks, cash. For a total amount of almost one billion euros.

Only twenty years later, in 2007, Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers, alerted by Claire Thibout, her mother’s accountant, discovered the amount of the sums paid to Banier. The same year Father Bettencourt died, accentuating his wife’s loneliness. She would become increasingly confused as she did not remember her husband’s disappearance, according to a cleaning lady cited by Corinne Audouin in the documentary. This same employee would have heard François-Marie Banier tell Liliane Bettencourt: “Adopt me, I will be the son you never had.”

While the mother wishes to make Banier her only heir, the daughter files a complaint for abuse of weakness, accusing the latter of having exploited her mother’s psychological fragility. The domestic employees then testify: those who mention the influence exerted by François-Marie Banier are fired. Liliane Bettencourt’s butler then decided to clandestinely record his boss’s conversations by hiding a dictaphone in her living room from April 2009 to May 2010. Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers handed over twenty-one hours of audio tapes, who transmitted them to the police. The content of these is revealed by Half part AND The point. And he blows up the case.

Because beyond the Bettencourt-Banier relationship, the recordings reveal the hidden side of this discreet empire. On the one hand, a sophisticated tax evasion system with secret accounts in Switzerland, a hidden island in the Seychelles (Arros Island) and opaque financial agreements. On the other hand, cash payments to politicians, in particular to Éric Woerth, Nicolas Sarkozy’s Budget Minister. The Bettencourt affair became the Woerth-Bettencourt affair, a state scandal that later shook power, to the point of darkening the relationship between François-Marie Banier and Liliane Bettencourt.

A family war

France will witness for years this judicial battle that will destroy the country’s richest family and shake the leadership of the State. Although a first conciliation between mother and daughter failed in 2008, an agreement was finally reached two years later. François-Marie Banier undertakes to return two life insurance contracts worth 590 million euros and to no longer receive donations. Liliane annuls the part of his will, making him her universal legatee. Patrice de Maistre, the wealth manager, is no longer in charge. Françoise and her children gain greater influence in the Téthys holding company, which manages the Bettencourt fortune.

The trial, which was due to begin in 2010, was finally postponed. It will be five years before the Bordeaux criminal court issues its verdict. François-Marie Banier is sentenced to three years in prison, including six months in prison. In 2016, the appeal court increased his sentence: four years of suspension and a fine of 375,000 euros. The compensation is symbolically reduced to one euro, taking into account the agreement concluded in 2010. Martin d’Orgeval, Banier’s partner, receives a suspended sentence of 18 months. Pascal Wilhelm, the billionaire’s lawyer, receives a one-year suspended sentence and three million euros in damages. The three are thus condemned for abuse of weakness.

On October 17, 2011, a French judge ordered Liliane Bettencourt placed under the guardianship of her family due to her mental deterioration; The latter had not wanted to undergo a medical examination three years earlier, declaring herself a “free woman.” Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers and her two children then took control of the fortune.

Liliane Bettencourt’s lawyer announces that she wants to appeal and declares that her client was ready for a “nuclear war” with her daughter. But it’s already too late. Liliane Bettencourt, weakened by Alzheimer’s disease, died on September 21, 2017, at the age of 94, in her mansion in Neuilly-sur-Seine.