Did
you know...? |
Bernard
Arnault
richest European ... skilled pianist ... world's
largest luxury goods empire ... rents Indigo Island
in the Bahamas for $300,000 a week!
|
Liliane
Bettencourt
daughter of L'Oréal founder Eugene Schueller ...
husband,
Andre Bettencourt - thought to have wartime ties with
the Nazis - died Nov 2007 at age
88 ... 2009
world's richest woman ... in Dec 2010 she reconciled with
her daughter who was taking her to court for giving $1.4
billion to a well-known photographer ... suffers from
Dementia ... so now her fortune has been placed under
the guardianship of her daughter, Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers. |
Francois
Pinault & familly
high school drop out ... was awarded the French Legion
d'honneur in 2009 ... son, Francois-Henri, married actress
Salma Hayek on Valentine's Day 2009 ...
art lover also owns auction house Christie's (his personal
art collection, worth an estimated $1.7 billion, encompasses
2,000-plus works by over 80 artists including Pablo Picasso) |
Serge
Dassault & family
French senator ... makers
of Mirage and Rafale jets |
Alain
& Gerard Wertheimer
extremely discreet, press-shy brothers ... own
Chanel No. 5 perfume, one of the world's top selling scents |
Jean-Claude
Decaux & family
started out putting ads on public toilets and bus shelters
... largest outdoor advertising company in the world ...
places ads in 55 countries |
Xavier
Niel
in 1984, while still in high school, he established Minitel,
France's forerunner to the internet. He launched the country's
first internet provider, WorldNet, in 1993 and sold it
for $50 million just before the internet bubble burst
... was a shareholder in sex shops and peep shows until
a prostitution scandal landed him in jail for a month |
Alain
Merieux & family
specializes in the diagnosis of bacteria in the human
body and infectious diseases like HIV and tuberculosis
... eldest
son killed in plane crash in 1996, age 27 ... 2nd- eldest
son died of cardiac failure in 2006, age 39 |
Pierre
Bellon & family
penned autobiography, "I've Had a Great Time" |
Martin
& Olivier Bouygues
brothers ... Martin is a close confident of French President
Nicolas Sarkozy and godfather of the president's son ...
was awarded the Legion d'honneur in July 2010 |