[News Inside] Legal Battle Against Her Mother... The Scandal of the World's Wealthiest Woman

Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, Granddaughter of L'Or?al Founder
Inherits Most of the Fortune from Her Heiress Mother

▲Lilian Bettencourt (left) and her only daughter Fran?oise Bettencourt Meyers.

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] The original golden spoon. The richest woman in the world.

She is Fran?oise Juliette Bettencourt Meyers, the granddaughter of Eug?ne Schueller, the founder of the French cosmetics company L'Or?al, and the only daughter and heiress of her mother Liliane Bettencourt.

On the 9th, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Meyers' fortune was $65.6 billion (approximately 75.6 trillion KRW), ranking 12th.

Most of Meyers' wealth was inherited from her mother. Thanks to this, following her mother, Meyers earned the title of the richest woman in the world, but she also gained the dishonor of a scandalous family feud that shook the world, as she did not hesitate to take her mother to court.

Her mother, Liliane Bettencourt, also inherited most of her assets from her father, but in her later years, she suffered from dementia and engaged in a legal battle with her daughter. Some speculated that the daughter, aiming for the inheritance, drove her mother into dementia, but there were also suspicious circumstances regarding Bettencourt's mental state.

Liliane Bettencourt gave more than 4 million euros (about 4.9 billion KRW) to her boyfriend, the famous photographer Fran?ois-Marie Banier, who was 25 years her junior, and also gave gifts worth 1 billion euros (about 1.7 trillion KRW). In addition, suspicious life insurance contracts worth billions were confirmed, leading Fran?oise Bettencourt Meyers to file a lawsuit claiming that Banier exploited her mother's fragile mental state.

Moreover, Banier reportedly received 820 million euros from Liliane under the pretext of sponsorships and other reasons, and there were even rumors that Liliane intended to leave her entire fortune to him.

During the lawsuit, allegations of political funding involving Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president at the time and former Minister of the Interior, surfaced, causing close aides of President Sarkozy to resign, turning the case into a scandal that shook French politics and business circles.

In 2011, Fran?oise filed a lawsuit requesting guardianship rights to protect her mother’s property rights due to her dementia symptoms. In her later years, Liliane harshly cursed her daughter during their legal disputes, saying she would "curse her from the grave."

Eventually, the mother and daughter reconciled and ended their legal battle, and Liliane passed away in 2017 at the age of 94. The Bettencourt family holds 33% of L'Or?al's shares.

The L'Or?al owned by his family is one of the top 10 companies in France and operates in more than 140 countries worldwide.