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Liliane Bettencourt. Picture: Alamy

Review | Book reveals how high society, politics and money collide in Parisian scandal involving L’Oreal heiress

The world’s richest woman; her confidante; feuding family members … these are the stars in this definitive account of the scandal that stunned Paris

The Bettencourt Affair
by Tom Sancton (read by Amanda Carlin)
Penguin Audio

Money fuels this story, but if it were that alone, this book would not have the narra­tive drive that makes it such an extraordi­nary tale. Included in the mix are a family feud, an interloper, politics and wartime secrets. Liliane Bettencourt, the 94-year-old L’Oreal heir whose mind has been made inaccessible by Alzheimer’s, plays the central role in a scandal exposed by an elderly-abuse suit filed in 2007 by her estranged only child, Françoise Meyers.

Over about 20 years, Meyers’ mother had gifted 1 billion to François-Marie Banier, a photographer whom her mother had met in 1987. Theirs was a platonic relationship but the last straw for Meyers was discovering that Banier was manoeuv­ring to be legally adopted into the family.

Who doesn’t appreciate yarns about other dysfunctional families?

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