Tom Sancton - The Bettencourt Affair: The World’s Richest Woman and the Scandal That Rocked Paris

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Copyright 2017 by Thomas A. Sancton

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For Maya Jane Sancton,

who came into the world while this book was gestating, and brightens every day

Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, A Diamond as Big as the Ritz

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Do you think Im going to go to court and plead against my mother, to add a public scandal to a private one?

Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family

A UTHORS N OTE

A French friend of mine, a cultivated man passionate about theater and literature, asked why I wanted to write a book about those people. By that, he meant the fabulously wealthy Bettencourt family, the brash artist who enchanted Madame Bettencourt and made off with a fortune, and the jealous daughter who tried to stop him. For nearly a decade, those people were fodder for a French media frenzy that often focused on gossip and scandal. The Bettencourt Affair is not a gossip book. It is an in-depth look at an intriguing set of characters whose intense relationships and clashing motives played out against the backdrop of wars, fortune, politics, and the artsuntil the law intervened and led to one of the most dramatic court cases in recent French history. It is above all a rich human drama about money, class, seduction, and betrayal, very French in its forms but universal in its themes. In the end, those people might just tell us something about ourselves.

I have followed the Bettencourt Affair since it first erupted into the French headlines in 2010. As a former Paris bureau chief for Time magazine and a longtime resident of France, I had covered hundreds of stories about French politics, business, culture, and society. But I had never witnessed a drama quite like thisit was Dallas, Downton Abbey, and House of Cards rolled into one. I proposed a piece to Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, a friend and colleague from my days at Time, and got an immediate go-ahead. My 6,000-word article, entitled Dangerous Liaisons, ran in the magazines November 2010 edition. My interest in the case perked up again in January 2015 when it finally went to trial in Bordeaux. It was at that point that the idea of doing a book took shapea book not just on the legal case but on the whole Bettencourt saga, from the founding of the LOral cosmetics empire in 1909 to the bitter battle that tore the family apart and even threatened a president a century later.

A vast amount of research material existed alreadyincluding literally thousands of articles in the French press and at least a half dozen French books on the affair. Digging into the past of LOral founder Eugne Schueller took me to the French National Archives, where the files on his alleged Nazi collaboration are housed. In addition to the written sources, I conducted more than sixty interviews.

Attentive readers will note that I gained direct access to Franois-Marie Banier and people close to him, including his partner Martin dOrgeval and former partner Pascal Greggory. Despite numerous requests, however, I was unable to speak directly to Franoise Bettencourt Meyers or her husband, Jean-Pierre Meyers. This is deeply regrettable, but it was their choice. In the absence of face-to-face contact, I was able to talk to sources close to the Meyerses, including their lawyers, friends, and communications advisers. The five published interviews by Franoise Meyers between 2009 and 2012 gave me a good idea of her motivations and point of view.

As for the central figure in this drama, Liliane Bettencourt, my request to interview her for Vanity Fair in 2010 fell through at the last minute. Now its too late: The ninety-four-year-old heiress is closeted in her mansion under the control of her daughter, deep into Alzheimers, and obviously inaccessible. I was able to talk to a number of people close to her, including her guardian for legal matters, Olivier Pelat, a lifelong friend of the Bettencourts. In addition to a half dozen published interviews dating back to 1987, and two televised interviews, I was able to consult Liliane Bettencourts prolific correspondence with Franois-Marie Banier between 1989 and 2010, two volumes of which are included in the court record.

One of the most useful resources was the thirty-five-volume investigative dossier. In addition to police reports and judicial documents, these files contain hundreds of depositions by witnesses ranging from principals in the caseBanier, Liliane Bettencourt, and Franoise Meyersto the Bettencourts domestic employees, advisers, family friends, medical experts, and the other defendants.

In pursuing the legal aspects, I carried out lengthy interviews with former prosecutor Philippe Courroye, who headed up the initial investigation, and Judge Isabelle Prvost-Desprez, who took over the case when Courroye closed his own probe in September 2009. I also met with a dozen lawyers representing the various parties, including one, Pascal Wilhelm, who ultimately found himself on the defendants bench. Several lawyers also made their court briefs available to me.

On the political angle, I was unable to speak directly with ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy or his former campaign treasurer and cabinet minister ric Woerth. But their depositions, published interviews, and, in Woerths case, a whole book on the affair, provided useful insights. Interviews with two of Sarkozys closest aides, former judicial adviser Patrick Ouart, and former chief of staff Claude Guant, gave me a fascinating inside view of the case as seen from the lyse Palace.

I am deeply grateful to all the above-named sources for their cooperation and assistance.