Liliane Bettencourt has died aged 94

L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, the world's richest woman, has died at the age of 94.

Her daughter Francoise Bettencourt Meyers said in a statement that her mother 'left peacefully' at her home in Paris.

And six years after winning a bitter court battle against her mother, who she wanted to have declared senile, she is set to inherit Bettencourt's £29billion fortune.

Bettencourt, the cosmetics giant's principal shareholder, was the 14th richest person in the world, according to Forbes magazine, which estimated her net worth in March at $39.5bn (£29.1bn).

She was rarely seen in public since leaving the L'Oreal board in 2012, but her name remained in the headlines as members of her entourage were charged with exploiting her failing mental health.

Bettencourt had been declared unfit to run her own affairs in 2011 after a medical report showing she had suffered from 'mixed dementia' and 'moderately severe' Alzheimer's disease since 2006.

The complex legal case involved a bitter feud with her only daughter and unscrupulous friends, and even dragged in former president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Patrice de Maistre, who managed Bettencourt's vast fortune, was accused of getting her to hand over envelopes of cash to members of Sarkozy's right-wing UMP party during his 2007 presidential campaign.

The charges against Sarkozy were dropped in October 2013 due to lack of evidence.

Liliane Bettencourt, heiress to the L'Oreal fortune and her daughter Francoise Bettencourt Meyers arrive for the L'Oreal-UNESCO prize for women in Paris, March 3, 2011 - the same year the daughter won a court case against her mother to have her declared senile

Bettencourt, pictured in 1988, was worth $39.5bn and was the 14th richest person in the world

Liliane de Bettencourt at the Francois Marie Bannier Exhibition in Budapest, Hungary, back in February 2001

Bettencourt, pictured in the 1970s, started working for L'Oreal aged 15 as an apprentice labelling bottles of shampoo

French L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt and her husband politician and academic Andre Bettencourt at home

Bettencourt was born Liliane Schueller in Paris in 1922 to L'Oreal founder Eugene Schueller and Louise Madeleine Berthe - who died when Bettencourt was just five years old.

She started working for L'Oreal aged 15 as an apprentice labelling bottles of shampoo and rose through the ranks over the years.

She married French politician and future cabinet minister Andre Bettencourt in 1950, the couple remained together for 57 years during which time they had one daughter.

She inherited L'Oreal after her father died in 1957 and remained at the helm of the company for more than five decades.

In 1987 she set up the Bettencourt Schueller foundation along with her husband and daughter. The organisation is aimed at developing humanitarian projects.

French heiress and businesswoman, Liliane Bettencourt, who was one of the principal shareholders of L'Oreal and one of the wealthiest people in the world sits at home

Bettencourt with her husband Andre walk arm in arm in 2002 and she pulls up her collar outside her house nine years later (right)

Her position at L'Oreal saw Battencourt face a huge amount of criticism throughout her career and in 2007 she was given a Black Planet Award - an award created by the Ethecon Foundation and handed to those it deems to be destroying the planet.

Regularly named France's richest person and for years the wealthiest woman in the world thanks to her L'Oreal inheritance, Liliane Bettencourt lived her life surrounded by the scent of money, politics and more than a touch of scandal.

While private to the last, she maintained close ties to three French presidents during her lifetime and was never far from the society pages, which pored over her family relations minutely.

For most of her nine decades she was better known for who she was than for what she did, even though her first job, at the age of 15, was as an apprentice in a L'Oreal factory, mixing cosmetics and labelling bottles of shampoo.

The daughter of L'Oreal founder Eugene Schueller, to whom she was always close, in 1950, at the age of 28, she married Andre Bettencourt, a government minister of the 1960s and 70s under President Charles de Gaulle.

During those years, neither Schueller nor Bettencourt were able to shake accusations of pro-Nazi sympathies and anti-Semitism despite their close association with Francois Mitterrand, the former Socialist President.

Bettencourt inherited L'Oreal in 1957 and remained on the board of directors until stepping down in 2012

Deputy Andre Bettencourt and his wife Liliane Bettencourt attend the Queen Elizabeth II of England departure, on May 19, 1972 in Rouen

Liliane Bettencourt, who died today in Paris aged 95, is pictured here in the 1970s

Claude Pompidou, Bernadette Chirac, wife of Paris mayor Jacques Chirac, Liliane Bettencourt and Eva Barre are pictured left to right during Chanel ready-to-wear collection show, on January 30, 1979 in Paris

Schueller funded a World War Two pro-collaboration group and Bettencourt wrote anti-Semitic tracts around the same time, although he later joined the French Resistance and said he regretted his earlier writings.

Liliane inherited the L'Oreal empire when her father died in 1957 but running the company fell to Francois Dalle, another friend of Mitterrand's, who built the business into the $100billion company it is today.

Famed for its 'Because you're worth it' advertising campaign, L'Oreal is France's fourth-largest listed firm.

A timeline of the shampoo apprentice who went on to be worth $44billion October 21, 1922: Born in Paris as Liliane Henriette Charlotte Schueller. 1937: At the age of 15, she begins working as an apprentice in a L'Oreal factory, mixing cosmetics and labelling bottles of shampoo. 1950: Marries Andre Bettencourt, a government minister of the 1960s and 70s under President Charles de Gaulle at the age of 28. 1957: Inherits the L'Oreal empire when her father dies, but running the company falls to Francois Dalle. 2007: Husband Andre dies and her life is thrust into the spotlight when her daughter takes a photographer to court over abusing her mother's frailty. 2011: Court rules Bettencourt was suffering from a form of dementia, and awarded the daughter control over her mother's wealth and income - estimated at 17 billion euros and including about 33 percent of L'Oreal. 2012: Stands down from the board of L'Oreal amid deteriorating health. September 21, 2017: Dies peacefully in Paris, France, aged 94. Advertisement

It was after her husband's death in 2007 that the heiress' own life took centre stage.

She became embroiled in a public fight with her only child, Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers, when her daughter went to court to accuse photographer and socialite Francois-Marie Banier of taking advantage of her mother's frailty. Banier denied wrongdoing.

The scandal widened to include prominent politicians in 2008, when Bettencourt-Meyers gave police secret recordings of conversations between her mother and her wealth manager, taped by Bettencourt's former butler.

Former President Sarkozy was included in a subsequent probe into whether he exploited Bettencourt's mental frailty to fund his victorious 2007 election campaign.

Although the court dropped the inquiry, 'l'Affaire Bettencourt' dogged Sarkozy, who was put under investigation in 2014 on suspicion of using his influence to gain details of the probe.

Sarkozy denied any wrongdoing and said the case was political.

In October 2011, a court ruled that Bettencourt was suffering from a form of dementia, and awarded the daughter control over her mother's wealth and income - estimated at 17 billion euros and including about 33 percent of L'Oreal.

Grandson Jean-Victor Meyers was designated to look after her health and physical well-being.

L'Oreal legend has it that Liliane Bettencourt was not much loved by her mother, and certainly she was less than enamoured with her own offspring towards the end of her life.

'My daughter could have waited patiently for my death instead of doing all she can to precipitate it,' Bettencourt said in a TV interview recorded in her later years.

The Greek Opera singer Maria Callas pictured with Liliane Bettencourt as they arrive at a meeting for medical research at UNESCO in Paris back in 1968

Bettencourt's home in Neuilly-sur-Seine, west of Paris Bettencourt and her children owned 33 per cent of L'Oreal

L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, the world's richest woman pictured here in the 1970s, has died at the age of 94

Her death opens a new phase for L'Oreal, France's fourth-largest listed company, altering the relationship it has with key shareholder Nestle, the Swiss food company.

Bettencourt and her children owned 33 percent of the company. Her daughter said in a statement the family remained committed to L'Oreal and its management team.

She said: 'I would like to reiterate, on behalf of our family, our entire commitment and loyalty to L'Oreal and to renew my confidence in its President Jean-Paul Agon and his teams worldwide.'

Agon was appointed chairman and chief executive of L'Oreal in 2011.

Nestle, which owns a little over 23 percent of L'Oreal, had an agreement with the founding family stipulating that the two parties could not increase their stakes in the cosmetics group during Liliane Bettencourt's lifetime and for at least six months after her death.

The Swiss company has been a major investor since 1974, when Bettencourt entrusted nearly half of her own stake in the firm to Nestle in exchange for a three percent holding in the Swiss company. She took the move out of fear that L'Oreal might be nationalised if the Socialists came to power in France.