When the daughter of the founder of L’Oreal, Liliane Bettencourt requests that her guardianship and the management of her assets, imposed by the judge, be not placed under the control of her daughter Francoise, but rather left in the hands of only one of her two grandsons, Jean-Victor Meyers, it is not only another episode in the endless drama which tears apart one of the richest families in the world. It is also a manifestation of a situation which concerns many people, regardless of their standing. And which sheds light on many aspects of our societies.
Today, the generation born in the 20’s is reaching a very advanced age. They are often in great shape, live, spend, and travel. Sometimes they are affected by the effects of degenerative diseases, they lose their memory. Much less frequently, they throw good money after bad, they squander their wealth.
Their children, from the baby boom generation, reach, now, retirement age. They have ended their careers, sometimes with very great success, but they still have not inherited from their parents. They get impatient. And even if they love their very elderly parents, and this is increasingly rare, they are often seeking many pretexts to accelerate the changing hands of assets. Donations? Not enough. A legal guardianship? Necessary but with legal complications. Get it over quickly with the lives of their parents? Some dare. Indeed notaries are now beginning to worry, in private, in seeing more and more aging children apply for legal guardianship of their very elderly parents; and even more, in case of hospitalization of these parents, to see them claim they have the permission to stop their treatments, under the Leonetti law of 2005, on patients rights and end of life.
Sensing that these threats may come, worried of being pushed into nursing homes and hospitals, the very elderly turn to their grandchildren, who can better defend them, because they have much to learn from their grandparents, because they have less hope of an immediate estate, and because even cynically, they may hope that the succession skips a generation, or at least benefit from the generosity of their grandparents.
Of course, the above is a general reflection and does not concern the daughter and the grandchildren of Mrs. Bettencourt, whom no person shall attribute such dark thoughts.
Strange generation than that of May 68, who have put their children into debt indeed far beyond reasonable, who have had all the powers in their active life, and who now want all the hereditaments for their retirement.
This is one of the least perceived consequences, global, of the increase in life expectancy: inheritance is not a way to gain a foothold in active life. Barely a way to supplement retirement. If anything is left. Unless the very elderly are put away and a declaration is made that, after a certain age, each one of us will have to be content with a minimum, determined by the following generations. Which will only push the very elderly to leave, with their money, and travel to more welcoming countries.