Françoise Bettencourt Meyers: The Untold Story of the Richest Woman in the World

2024-02-04 03:32:20

Every day, for two or three hours, the richest woman in the world sits at her Steinway piano and plays a work by her favorite composer: Bach. A good day for Françoise Bettencourt Meyers is one in which she does not have to leave home, a modern building in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the exclusive area bordering Paris, which several close friends have described as “the residence of an intellectual.” .

Surrounded by books—some written by her—and her select music, this 70-year-old Frenchwoman became the first woman to amass a fortune of $100 billion last December, according to the Bloomberg index. The heiress of the L’Oréal beauty emporium is just one place away from entering the top ten of Forbes billionaires. Although his presence on these lists has been constant for seven years – when he took the place left by his mother, Liliane Bettencourt, who died in 2017 -, his name is not as well known as those of his ranking neighbors, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates, for example. Of course, with one exception that did lead her to the headlines of the planet: when her family was involved in the so-called ‘Bettencourt affair’, a scandal that began as a family confrontation and ended in a state matter.

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Françoise Bettencourt Meyers would have preferred to remain in the shadows, as she had lived until then. Introverted, shy, even a little sullen, are adjectives that appear among those who know her when they try to define her. It doesn’t seem like an easy thing, especially because her intimate environment is small and her circle of friends has remained silent when faced with questions from the media: they know that she avoids the limelight. She has been a character forged since she was a child. Born in 1953, the only child of André and Liliane Bettencourt, she had a protected world around her that her parents were in charge of preserving. He, a conservative politician, minister in the governments of George Pompidou and Jacques Chirac; she, heiress to the L’Oréal fortune and a key figure in Parisian high society. It is clear that Françoise was born into a home marked by the privileges of power and fortune. But neither one nor the other, it is known, guarantee happiness.

For the first three years of her life, Françoise lived apart from her mother. Liliane was forced to leave Paris to treat the effects of tuberculosis that had plagued her since she was a child and had left her with hearing problems that accompanied her until her death. Françoise longed for her maternal presence and when she had her close to her once more she clung to her tightly. “Like a mussel stuck to a rock,” she once described. Liliane, however, felt incapable of giving all the time that her daughter asked of her. Yes, she was in charge of creating a protection scheme for her. As she feared that her daughter would be kidnapped, she sent her surrounded by bodyguards to the school where she began to study, Marymount in Neuilly-sur-Seine, run by Catholic nuns.

The girl grew up without much freedom. However, she remembers a happy childhood in which the three of them—dad, mom, daughter—traveled the world and were a team: “My parents’ names cannot be related only to the rankings of great fortunes,” she told Le Figaro, in one of the few interviews he has given. “We formed a united family, who shared the simple things in life.”

Françoise continued to cultivate that simplicity and, above all, began to forge a character very different from that of her mother. Liliane: pretty, glamorous, always friendly, lover of haute couture, the sum of everything chic. Françoise: of few words, austere, dressed in dark colors, thick glasses, almost no makeup – curious, since she is the owner of L’Oréal -, refused to be the protagonist of big parties or red carpets. Even today, with her commitments as a board member of her company, her public appearances are few. “Forget her name and you will see a woman who mightn’t be more normal,” real estate magnate Olivier Pelat, a family friend, once said.

With such opposite personalities, mother and daughter created a relationship full of ups and downs. Liliane did not understand how Françoise might have features so contrary to her own and she came to define her daughter as “too cold”, “a little heavy”, according to the American writer Tom Sancton, author of the book The Bettencourt Affair.

Françoise stood her ground. Instead of being part of the jet set activities, she stayed at home reading – especially books on Greek mythology -, taking piano lessons – her teachers say she masters it perfectly – or writing. Towards the end of her adolescence, her parents wanted to connect her with young men who matched her idea of ​​her perfect son-in-law. Children of politicians, high aristocracy. Very quickly Françoise made them see that she was not going to accept a marriage of convenience. Furthermore, at the age of 19, she had already met the man who would become her husband: Jean-Pierre Meyers, a Jew, grandson of a rabbi murdered in Auschwitz. In this choice perhaps there was something beyond love: perhaps there were also a few drops of rebellion. To understand it, we have to talk regarding her maternal grandfather, Eugène Schueller, the ingenious chemist who founded L’Oréal.

Of dyes and Nazism

Schueller, of German descent, was born in Paris in 1881 into a home of pastry chefs. As a child he got used to helping his parents in the business, until he managed to raise money to study at the Faculty of Chemistry. One day, with his degree under his arm, he had a conversation with a hairdresser who gave him the idea of ​​creating a hair dye that did not cause toxicity. The topic remained in the mind of Schueller, who had already shown signs of being very creative. At that time his laboratory was two small rooms and a bathroom. There, for two years, he dedicated himself to experimenting—even with himself as a guinea pig—until in 1907 he managed to create what would be the first non-toxic synthetic dye. Schueller realized what he had on his hands and rushed to register his company, first as the French Society of Harmless Hair Dyes. Later he called her L’Oréal.

Soon their dyes were already being marketed in neighboring countries. Step by step, the company expanded its portfolio to more beauty products. But the shadow came: during World War II, Schueller had no qualms regarding financing pro-Nazi movements, even lending the L’Oréal headquarters as a meeting place. Schueller, who was investigated for this when the war ended, died in 1957. At that time, his only daughter, Liliane, was 35 years old and already married to the politician André Bettencourt, also known for his anti-Semitic diatribes.

So Françoise’s decision to marry a Jewish man, descended from rabbis, did not go down very well with her parents at first, although they ended up accepting it and even gave her a place in their companies. Her marriage to Jean-Pierre Meyers was in 1984, more than ten years following they met, in a private ceremony in Florence (Italy). “If someone had wanted to marry me just for the money, I would have seen it,” she said in Le Monde. “I waited a long time for my husband and I know that it was not the money that attracted him.” They have two sons: Jean-Victor and Nicolas, whom they have educated in the Jewish religion.

In fact, the religious topic began to interest Françoise from a very young age, so much so that her academic training is focused on it. She specialized at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in relations between Jews and Christians and has written several books on that topic. While her husband was involved in the family businesses, she remained focused on reading and writing. She is the author of The Greek Gods and has published five volumes dedicated to the analysis of the links between Judaism and Christianity, a work that has earned her awards such as Les Lauriers Verts, received in 2009.

His commitment to letters is such that on some occasions he has left behind the desire for anonymity to attend book signings and meetings with readers. There was also another reason why she forgot her taste for not being the protagonist: when she decided to confront her mother and the man who had come into her family, according to her, as a manipulative intruder: the celebrity photographer François-Marie Banier. It was time to uncover the “Bettencourt affair.”

Mother vs. daughter

The name of François-Marie Banier began to be heard in his family circle in 1987, when he was hired by the French magazine Egoiste to take some photographs of Liliane Bettencourt. There was an immediate click between the two. Liliane liked Banier’s impetus, her self-confidence, even her insolence, which made her laugh more than annoying her.

His daughter Françoise, on the other hand, found him an unpleasant character. The relationship started badly when, at a family dinner, Banier mocked André, Françoise’s father, in her presence and without hesitation. Françoise warned her mother that if the photographer continued to frequent her house—a mansion, in Neuilly-sur-Seine itself, a few meters from hers—he would not visit her with the same frequency once more. In fact, she distanced herself to the point that mother and daughter hardly spoke to each other.

While that separation deepened, Banier gained ground with Liliane. Some close friends said that her presence gave life to the billionaire. Others, including Françoise, believed that she was taking advantage. Not only did Banier get a contract with L’Oréal for $900,000 a year as a “creative consultant,” but following each meeting with Liliane he left with his hands full, either with a check with several zeros, or a Picasso, not counting who was regarding to keep the island that the family has in the Seychelles. After everything was aired, it became known that he received more than one billion euros in total.

The final straw came following the death of André, Françoise’s father, in 2007. It was then that employees of the mansion approached his residence and told him that they had heard Banier ask Liliane to adopt him. “I will be the son you never had,” the photographer apparently proposed. Full of rage, and ruining her discretion, Françoise denounced Banier to court for taking advantage of the “psychic weakness” of her mother, who was already over eighty years old, in order to take her fortune.

At the same time, the media published some clandestine recordings that Liliane’s butler had made for several months, thanks to which not only Banier’s achievements were evident, but also possible cases of tax fraud on the part of the billionaire and even political corruption. Nicolas Sarkozy himself, who had just become President, ended up in trouble due to his continuous visits to the Bettencourt mansion.

Liliane’s face filled the covers of all the newspapers and magazines, while her daughter defended herself for having opened Pandora’s box. “It is a tragic story of which my mother is a victim, and it is up to me, as an only daughter, to protect her,” said Françoise. Her mother was blunt: “I don’t see my daughter anymore. For me, she has become something inert.”

Banier, in the end, was sentenced to four years in prison, to return 150 million euros to the family and pay a fine of 375,000. The photographer appealed and some time later obtained a lighter verdict and was spared from going to prison. Liliane, for her part, remained under the legal guardianship of her daughter. Her world was reduced to not being able to make any decisions regarding her business. Over the years, mother and daughter managed to reconcile. By then, Liliane already had Alzheimer’s. She died at 94 years old.

Today Françoise Bettencourt Meyers controls around 35 percent of L’Oréal, an emporium that has under its control more than twenty powerful brands, including Giorgio Armani, Prada and Valentino, and that is achieving unprecedented profits. Her eldest son, Jean-Victor, has joined the board of directors and plays an increasingly prominent role. As president of the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation, Françoise carries out philanthropic work that supports science and art. It also helps in a sensitive cause for her: research in cochlear implantation and the development of innovative surgeries for deaf people, the illness that caused her mother to suffer so much. “I would like her to know that I never stopped loving her,” Françoise once said. Tomorrow, like her today, she will play the piano.

MARÍA PAULINA ORTIZ

Chronicler of EL TIEMPO

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