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

The feature film by Thierry Klifa, directed by Isabelle Huppert and Laurent Lafitte, is inspired by the Bettencourt affair, which hit the headlines a few years ago. A look back at the unique story of the woman who was the richest woman in the world.

This is the story of a tragically alone woman. The first fortune in France, at the head of a cosmetics empire founded by her father, Liliane Bettencourt found herself at the heart of a resounding 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 socialite photographer who receives nearly a billion in gifts. A daughter-heiress who cries scandal. And revelations on the links between the greatest fortune in France and political leaders.

After the documentary series The Bettencourt Affair: Scandal among the richest woman in the world on Netflix, it is the turn of 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 her whimsical friend.

Splendors and miseries of the French bourgeoisie

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

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

“He represented her as a big, simple girl, and it touched her deeply. It was Liliane with her soul,” comments Claude Delay, close to the family, in the Netflix documentary series.

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

A surrogate son?

Only child, and motherless, Liliane Schueller was born in 1922 and grew up in the shadow of her father Eugène, founder of L’Oreal. A controversial figure, the genius chemist supported La Cagoule, an anti-Semitic group in the 1930s. A membership shared with André Bettencourt, a politician with whom Liliane married in 1953. From this union – distant but cordial – was born, three years later, Françoise, the couple’s only child. Their characters are opposite – the daughter not liking worldly affairs, the mother wishing 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, a confidant, almost a surrogate son. He accompanies the billionaire on her travels, dines regularly at her place, and is part of her inner circle. Under his spell, she appreciates him for his extravagance. Corinne Audouin, journalist at France Inter, says that when the photographer goes to Neuilly-sur-Seine, “he pees on the rose bushes, he throws his moped in the garden”, which deeply shocks the staff. “In this world, there is a kind of respect, almost deference for these people,” she explains. “François-Marie Banier comes like a dog in a game of bowling, to turn everything upside down.”

‘”He is not badly brought up, he is much more than badly brought up, he is outrageous. And this outrageousness is something that liberates”, explains Jean-Michel Ribes, theater director and friend of the photographer, in the documentary.

Sincere friend for some, predator for others, the figure of François-Marie Banier is intriguing. Over the years, the gifts to his address pile up. Master paintings, life insurance contracts, checks, cash. For a total amount of almost a billion euros.

It was only twenty years later, in 2007, that Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers, alerted by Claire Thibout, her mother’s accountant, discovered the extent of the sums paid to Banier. The same year, Father Bettencourt died, accentuating his wife’s loneliness. She would become more and more confused, not remembering the disappearance of her husband, according to a cleaning lady that Corinne Audouin quotes in the documentary. This same employee would have heard François-Marie Banier say to Liliane Bettencourt: “Adopt me, I will be the son you never had.”

While the mother wishes to make Banier her sole heir, the daughter files a complaint for abuse of weakness, accusing the latter of having exploited her mother’s psychological fragility. Domestic employees then testify – those who mention the influence exercised 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. Twenty-one hours of audio tapes were given to Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers, who passed them on to the police. The content of these is revealed by Mediapart et The Point. And 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 arrangements. On the other, cash payments to politicians, notably Éric Woerth, Nicolas Sarkozy’s Budget Minister. The Bettencourt affair became the Woerth-Bettencourt affair, a state scandal which then shook power – to the point of obscuring the relationship between François-Marie Banier and Liliane Bettencourt.

A family war

For years, France will witness this legal battle which will tear apart the richest family in the country, and which will rock the top 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 cancels 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 to begin in 2010, was finally postponed. It will be five years before the Bordeaux criminal court delivers its verdict. François-Marie Banier is sentenced to three years in prison, including six months. In 2016, the court of appeal increased his sentence: four years suspended and a fine of 375,000 euros. Damages are symbolically reduced to one euro, taking into account the agreement concluded in 2010. Martin d’Orgeval, Banier’s companion, receives an 18-month suspended sentence. 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 the placement of Liliane Bettencourt under the guardianship of her family due to her declining mental state – the latter having refused to undergo a medical assessment three years earlier, declaring to be a “free woman”. Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers and her two sons 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 too late. Diminished by Alzheimer’s disease, Liliane Bettencourt died on September 21, 2017, at the age of 94, in her mansion in Neuilly-sur-Seine.