THE TELEGRAPH: Liliane Bettencourt, heiress to the L'Oréal fortune and France's richest woman, is at the centre of a web of revelations about money, power and influence in the French Republic.
Liliane Bettencourt is the nearest thing the French Republic has to the Queen: regal, elegant, impeccably groomed and wealthy.
As France's richest woman, the L'Oréal heiress occupies the constitutional twilight zone where the extraordinarily privileged meet the extremely political.
In this exclusive power group – rather like a masonic lodge without the aprons – influence and favours can be traded: donations given; promises made; gongs awarded; designer-draped backs scratched discreetly over champagne and canapés.
Discreetly, that was, until Mrs Bettencourt, 87, suffered a Paul Burrell moment – a blabby majordomo who secretly taped her private conversations. Now French citizens are reeling from previously inconceivable claims that their hair-dye queen has been fiddling her tax returns, employing a top government minister's wife and involved in what, if true, smacks of plans to pervert the course of justice.
The "Butlergate" tapes have brought a new twist to the bitter legal battle between Mrs Bettencourt and her only daughter who claims her ageing mother is no longer in a fit state of mind to manage the family fortune.
On Thursday, Françoise Meyers-Bettencourt will start a private prosecution against a gay society photographer she claims took advantage of her mother's mental frailty to "manipulate" her out of €1 billion (£800 million).
François-Marie Banier, 63, the photographer, denies the charge of "abuse of weakness". He has received valuable works of art, cash and insurance policies from Mrs Bettencourt – who has also rejected the accusation, saying: "I can do what I like with my money." >>> Kim Willsher in Paris | Saturday, June 26, 2010
