Paris ? An ugly battle at beauty icon L’Oreal between Europe’s richest woman and her daughter could end up shaping the future of the world’s No. 1 cosmetics maker.

As France stands transfixed by lurid claims of dirty campaign cash and tax dodging that have ensnared President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government, the 87-year-old heiress to the L’Oreal fortune fears her daughter could let the family-owned business fall into foreign corporate hands.

Losing L’Oreal — whose Maybelline mascaras, Lancome face creams and Armani perfumes are used by women around the globe — would be a blow to France, a nation as renowned for its beauty secrets as it is determined to remain a global economic player.

Much hinges on the woman set to inherit the century-old company, which has weathered criticism over Nazi ties and stayed friendly with generations of French leaders on the right and left — and may well shrug off this latest storm.

L’Oreal’s shares haven’t taken a hit, and have in fact risen amid the scandal, which stemmed from a feud between heiress Liliane Bettencourt and her daughter, Francoise Bettencourt Meyers. It erupted into a political affair a month ago over leaks by former Bettencourt employees about the family’s fortune.

Big shareholders and L’-Oreal’s workers appear eager to maintain its family-controlled structure, its cosmetics focus — and its Frenchness.

Potential suitors could be Switzerland-based Nestle, which already owns 30 percent of L’-Oreal, and Cincinnati, Ohio-based Procter & Gamble. But analysts say a takeover would be a costly investment even for those large companies, and wouldn’t necessarily be a good fit.

“We don’t believe it would make sense for Nestle to take over L’Oreal. They are two different businesses. In terms of the combination, we don’t see synergies that would explain” a takeover, said Claudia Lenz, analyst for Bank Vontobel in Zurich.

If anything, she said, Nestle might be looking to dump its L’Oreal stake to focus on its food and beverage business.

Procter & Gamble is a key rival to L’Oreal in the beauty products business — a market estimated at some $360 billion a year worldwide — and analysts said it could be eyeing a stake, though likely a minority one.

Neither Nestle nor Procter & Gamble would comment on the speculation.

Family squabbles

Lenz said L’Oreal looks less susceptible to takeover now than five years ago, when long-serving CEO Lindsay Owen-Jones announced he would step down. Owen-Jones helped transform the company from a France-focused company into an international powerhouse, pushing into Asia and farther into the United States.

The Bettencourt women have been estranged for years, all because of a celebrity photographer with a charming smile. The daughter accuses photographer Francois-Marie Banier of abusing her mother’s alleged mental frailty — and bilking the elder heiress out of 1 billion euros in cash, artworks and other gifts.

Francoise Bettencourt Meyers insists she does not covet the money — she already has billions of her own — but is heartsick to see her mother manipulated by those around her.

The mother has defended the photographer and publicly questioned her daughter’s motives. Bettencourt’s lawyer describes the daughter as a “57-year-old little girl” seeking the attention of a mother more at ease in the company of a dandy photographer than her only child.

101-year history

The company’s origins date to 1909, when Bettencourt’s chemist father, Eugene Schueller, invented a hair dye he named Aureale.

After World War II, several L’Oreal executives Schueller hired were accused of Nazi sympathies. Liliane Bettencourt’s husband Andre wrote for a Nazi-controlled newspaper, “La Terre Francaise,” though later joined the underground Resistance.