She’s been accused of funneling money to French politicians, but now she wants to hand it over in the daylight: Liliane Bettencourt, the billionaire heiress of the L’Oréal cosmetics fortune, has joined fifteen other wealthy French citizens in offering to pay higher taxes. As president Nicolas Sarkozy’s government hashes out a plan to save the French state 10 billion euros next year, the group wrote, called for an “exceptional contribution” from the country’s wealthiest business leaders. "We are aware that we have fully benefited from the French model and European environment to which we are attached and that we want to help preserve them,” the wrote in the petition, posted on the website of the magazine Le Nouvel Observateur. The proposed tax would be temporary, and target the very wealthiest French citizens as the government also worked to reform spending.
