Bitter L'Oréal Family Feud Set to Get Court Airing

Last June L’Oréal celebrated its centenary as one of the world’s most successful cosmetics companies with a lavish party at its headquarters near Paris.

As Liliane Bettencourt, daughter of the company’s founder and majority shareholder, entered the room, thousands of employees rose to give her a standing ovation. Minutes later, her daughter, Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers entered, to a second standing ovation.

However, the two women had not been on speaking terms for months, and today their acrimonious dispute is being played out in front of a court in Nanterre, near Paris.

The case will call into question the mental health of Bettencourt (86), whose estimated worth of €17 billion makes her the richest woman in Europe.

Named on Vanity Fair’s best-dressed list earlier this year, Bettencourt is known as much for her philanthropy as her elegance.

Her daughter now claims her generosity has gone a step too far, citing almost €1 billion worth of gifts which the elderly widow has given to François-Marie Banier, a photographer and artist 20 years her junior. The two met when Banier photographed Bettencourt for a French glossy magazine, Egoïste , in 1987, and discovered a shared love of art.

Bettencourt-Meyers (56) is now suing Banier for abus de faiblesse, or exploitation of frailty, claiming he took advantage of her mother’s allegedly fragile mental state to make her sign over seven life insurance policies to his name, along with numerous other gifts.

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Bitter L'Oréal Family Feud Set to Get Court Airing