Liliane Bettencourt, Europe's richest woman, is threatening to take a family inheritance row "nuclear", as her daughter fights her for control of the L'Oreal fortune.
The 89-year-old is resisting claims by her daughter Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers that she is unfit to manage her own finances and is in need of legal guardianship.
The feud started in 2007, when Bettencourt-Meyers said her mother's decision to give away around €1billion to socialite François-Marie Banier casted doubt on her ability to look after her tremendous wealth. This is the second round in the legal struggle between Bettencourt and her daughter after a truce of only a few months.
Over the weekend, Bettencourt gave a TV interview in which she accused her daughter of being "obsessed" by the lawsuit. She told the presenter that she loved Francoise once, "but not any more".
Bettencourt's lawyer told France's Journal du Dimanche: "I saw Lilliane Bettencourt on Friday, and she is in favour of nuclear war". Her legal team have warned that she may seek to reclaim 15 billion euros of shares that she gave her daughter.
The family has provided four years of fascination, after a former butler released secret tapes which implicated President Nicolas Sarkozy's party receiving brown envelope cash payouts from the family during his election campaign. This is still being investigated.
Bettencourt's guardianship will be decided at a later date, after legal proceedings re-opened on Tuesday.