THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt is ready to declare "nuclear war" on her daughter by reclaiming 15 billion euros she gave her in shares in the cosmetics empire, her lawyers have warned.
The warning came as a judge is to decide on Tuesday whether to put the 88-year-old under legal wardship.
Over the weekend, the ailing heiress's lawyer, Jean-Rene Farthouat, said she was ready for battle.
"I saw Lilliane Bettencourt on Friday, and she is in favour of nuclear war," he told the Journal du Dimanche.
Europe's richest woman first fell out with her only daughter in spectacular fashion late 2007, when François Bettencourt-Meyers accused a society photographer of bamboozling her mother out of a billion euros' worth of art and life insurance. She said her mother was no longer in command of her mental faculties and should be put under legal wardship. Her mother responded that she was in perfect shape.
In December 2010, the saga, which had boiled into an affair of state, ended when the mother and daughter reconciled.
However, in June, the feud flared up anew after Mrs Bettencourt-Meyers once again sought legal wardship for her mother, saying she was surrounded by a predatory "circle who pretend to be affectionate to the detriment of the family". » | Henry Samuel, Paris | Monday, October 03, 2011
