France has been absorbed in a convoluted scandal starring Liliane Bettencourt (the billionaire heiress of the L’Oreal fortune), her daughter, a gigolo photographer, and now, President Sarkozy.

It started when the heiress’ daughter filed suit against her geriatric mother and complained that the aforementioned gigolo photog, Francois Marie-Banier, was seducing the old lady so that she would shower him with 1 billion euros worth of gifts — including an island in the Seychelles.

The plot thickened when a former butler came forward with tapes of secret conversations between Bettencourt and her money manager that suggest tax evasion. Next, a former bookkeeper told police he had seen Bettencourt slip 150,000 euros in cash to Sarkozy’s Labour Minister, as a donation for the president’s 2007 election campaign.

Let Bettencourt enjoy her last years of the luxe life  (perhaps she and her gigolo are sunbathing somewhere in the Seychelles right now). The rest is just another story of corrupt French politics.

- Lizzie Crocker