Cops search Bettencourt’s home

2010-09-01 16:15

Paris - Police on Wednesday searched the home of France's richest woman in the latest twist in an ongoing scandal rocking President Nicolas Sarkozy's government, a source close to the enquiry said.

The search was ordered by a judge investigating whether a Parisian society photographer took advantage of 87-year-old Liliane Bettencourt, the heiress of the L'Oreal cosmetics empire, the source said.

Bettencourt was reportedly abroad during the search.

Several judicial investigations are under way into affairs linked to Bettencourt's fortune, including allegations of tax evasion and illegal campaign funding that have implicated Labour Minister Eric Woerth.

Woerth denies any wrongdoing, but has been politically weakened and the long-running investigation has undermined his and Sarkozy's attempt to push through pensions reform.

Bettencourt's estranged daughter Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers alleges people close to her mother have taken advantage of the heiress, whom she says is not mentally fit to manage her €17bn fortune.

One of the investigations centres on recordings of conversations between Bettencourt and an adviser apparently plotting tax evasion.

Investigators questioned Bettencourt in late July about those tapes and, according to her lawyer, afterwards searched offices in her home in the chic Paris suburb of Neuilly.
 

- SAPA