TOEven if in the general ranking of Scrooges compiled by Forbes it does not fall into the top ten, Francoise Bettencourt Meyersheiress of giant L’Orealmaintains the appointment of for the third consecutive year richest woman in the world.
Francoise Bettencourt is still the richest woman in the world
The Frenchwoman first made the Forbes billionaire list in 2018, after her mother, Liliane Bettencourt, then the richest woman on the planetdied in 2017, aged 94.
Born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France on July 10, 1953, Françoise is the only daughter of Liliane Bettencourt and the French politician André Bettencourt. His childhood, brightly gilded, however, she spent it forced into a sort of isolationcaused by the overprotective attitude of the mother who lived in constant fear of her possible kidnapping.
A difficult mother daughter relationship characterized by the contrast between a character, that of Liliane, dedicated to social life and that of Françoise, much more austere, but no less capable as an entrepreneur (she has recorded the best sales growth in recent decades).
Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, the richest woman in the world and mother Liliane.
The Bettencourt saga
But if at the beginning they could be defined as simple skirmishes, as things stand, instead they were harbingers of the family saga which will occupy the news of the newspapers, for years, with the so-called Bettencourt trial.
A story that since 2009 saw involved the daughter, the administrator of the immense estatea young photographerThe President Sarkozy and the butler. A real movie plot.
A photographer, a butler and a President
Mother who opposes her daughter, daughter who now owns the third fortune of France and who asks, obtaining it, to be able managing the mother’s estate due to ‘faltering mental health’.
The daughter claims that the mother is stoned deceived and defrauded by the photographer François-Marie Banier, to try again the approx 300 million euros in gifts obtained within a few months.
The administrator of the assets is also involved in the scandalended up in prison in Bordeaux, accused of circumvention of incapable.
It remains less clear how a woman with dementia was lucid enough to mastermind the tax fraud e the illicit financing of Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 electoral campaignasking in exchange not to pay millions of euros in taxes, money kept in foreign bank accounts.
Françoise Bettencourt inflexible
A saga that ended with Liliane who is entrusted to the eldest of the nephews, Jean-Victor Meyerswhile goods and assets are managed by Françoise and her children, Jean-Victor and Nicolas who, like her, don’t like the limelight.
He currently lives in Paris and is President of the foundation headed by his family, la Bettencourt Schueller Foundation, a philanthropic association which aims to encourage French progress in science and the arts and which finances scientific, social and traditional craft projects.
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