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The Quiet Protagonist

Review of Tom Sancton's "The Bettencourt Affair"

Updated: Jun 3, 2019


** spoiler alert ** This was our book club’s third read and it was perhaps not the wisest decision to read it immediately after “Bad Blood”, another investigative journalist account of a large-scale scandal. There was a bit of genre-fatigue as a result. Yet our group made the most out of what the book had to offer and interesting comparisons were made between the two books, including with regard to their protagonists (Holmes vs Banier) who both managed to enrich themselves without many credentials, using some degree of manipulation to get their ways. They also share traits in terms of their charming, “salesy” personalities. That particular trait proved crucial in both stories, as it provided the two characters with the ability to sway and surround themselves with highly-respected and influential people. In both cases, those powerful connections played crucial parts in the characters’ rise to fame and/or wealth, while providing them with considerable support and shielding them when things started going south (George Schultz for Holmes, Vanessa Paradis for Banier).

One key difference that our group raised however, is the author’s position vis-à-vis the affair that is being investigated. Unlike Bad Blood where John Carreyrou's affiliation to Washington Post as well his experience being followed and even intimidated during his investigation made it clear where he stood and what he was trying to achieve. He was first tipped off about Theranos' fraud and then gathered enough evidence to be convinced that the startup presented a real societal danger and had to be stopped. In the case of The Bettencourt Affair, things are not so clear-cut. Tom Sancton manages to makes sense of a complicated story with incredible talent. Sancton's ability to walk the reader through the various legal developments in case and the skillful ways in which he recalls who is whom without ever doing it too much is quite admirable.

Nonetheless, our book club members were left with a general feeling of sympathy toward Liliane Bettencourt and could not quite decide whether that was a fair stance to have after finishing the book and being presented with as full a picture as possible, or whether it indeed resulted from the author's own predisposition and bias. Although most of the book comes across a fair account of what happened, Sancton at times comes across as slightly irritated by Banier's attitude (granted, it is difficult not to be) as well as slightly outraged with Françoise's attitude towards the affair. By the end of the read, it becomes clear that the author believes Françoise has been consumed all of her life by her mother's lack of affection and that Françoise's jealousy toward Banier (whom Liliane painfully loved like a son) was most likely the driving force behind her suit. In addition, the author more than hints that both Françoise and her husband always had the larger goal of gaining control over L'Oréal. Ultimately, it is difficult to have any sympathy at all for Françoise and we felt uncomfortable about the fact that this might be partly because of the author's slight bias. In all fairness, this is not entirely the author's doing, given that Françoise and her husband declined to be interviewed within the framework of Sancton's research.

One of the risks with writing a book about a story like this one is always to end up being labeled as gossip and loose readers in an ocean of insignificant, unsubstantial details. The Bettencourt Affair, though, is a phenomenal account of a complicated family tragedy and an exciting tale of collusion between money and power. It provides for an interesting and fair - though not unbiased - critique of the French judicial system, as well as a near-ethnographic study of the oh-so-french taboo and unease toward money and the rich.

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