Serge Dassault (; born Serge Paul André Bloch; 4 April 1925 – 28 May 2018) was a French engineer, businessman and politician. He was the chairman and chief executive officer of

Dassault Group Dassault Group (; also GIM Dassault or Groupe Industriel Marcel Dassault SAS) is a French corporate group, group of companies established in 1929 with the creation of Société des Avions Marcel Bloch (now Dassault Aviation) by Marcel Dassault, a ...

, and a conservative politician. According to ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'', Dassault's net worth was estimated in 2016 at US$15 billion.

Early life and education

He was the younger son of Madeleine Dassault ( Minckes) and

Marcel Dassault Marcel Dassault (born Marcel Ferdinand Bloch; 23 January 1892 – 17 April 1986) was a French engineer and industrialist who spent his career in aircraft manufacturing. Early life and education Born on 23 January 1892 in Paris, he was the young ...

(born Marcel Ferdinand Bloch), from whom he inherited the

. Both his parents were of Jewish heritage, but later converted to Roman Catholicism. In 1929, his father founded what is now Dassault Aviation. During the Second World War, he was jailed when his father was sent to

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or sus ...

for refusing any cooperation from his company, Bordeaux-Aéronautique, directed by Henri Déplante, André Curvale and Claude de Cambronne, with the German aviation industry. He studied at the Lycée Janson de Sailly. He earned engineering degrees from the

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

(class of 1946) and Supaéro (class of 1951). In 1963, he received an

Executive MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accoun ...

from HEC Paris.

Business career

After his father's death in 1986, Serge Dassault continued developing the company, with the help of CEOs

Charles Edelstenne Charles Edelstenne (born 9 January 1938) is the general manager of Dassault Group. He was the CEO of Dassault Aviation until replaced by Éric Trappier in 2013, and he is also the chairman of Dassault Systèmes. Trained as a French chartered ac ...

and

Éric Trappier Éric Trappier (born 6 January 1960) is a French businessman and engineer. Since January 2013, he has been the CEO of Dassault Aviation, French aircraft manufacturer of military and business jets, a subsidiary of Dassault Group. Early life and c ...

. His group also owned the newspaper ''

Le Figaro ''Le Figaro'' () is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It is headquartered on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The oldest national newspaper in France, ''Le Figaro'' is one of three French newspapers of r ...

''. In December 1998, he was sentenced to two years' probation in the Belgian Agusta scandal, and was fined 60,000 Belgian francs (about €1,500). According to ''

'', the Dassault family also owns a winery, property in Paris, and an art auction house.

Political career

Dassault was a member of the

Union for a Popular Movement The Union for a Popular Movement (french: link=no, Union pour un mouvement populaire, ; UMP, ) was a centre-right List of political parties in France, political party in France that was one of the two major party, major contemporary political pa ...

political party, as was his son Olivier, who was a deputy in the National Assembly. He was a former mayor of the city of

Corbeil-Essonnes Corbeil-Essonnes () on the River Seine is a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. Although neighboring Évry is the official seat of the Arrondissement of Évry, the sub-prefecture building ...

, a southern suburb of Paris. In 2004, he became a senator, and in that position, he was an outspoken advocate of conservative positions on economic and employment issues, claiming that France's taxes and workforce regulations ruin its entrepreneurs. In 2005, he inaugurated the €2 million ''Islamic cultural centre'' (comprising a mosque) in his city of Corbeil-Essonnes. In November 2012, responding to the Ayrault government's plan to legalise

same-sex marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being Mexico, constituting ...

, he controversially said, during an interview for ''

France Culture France Culture is a French public radio channel and part of Radio France Radio France is the French national public radio broadcaster. Stations Radio France offers seven national networks: * France Inter — Radio France's " generalist" sta ...

'', that authorising it would cause "no more renewal of the population. ..We'll have a country of homosexuals. And so in ten years there'll be nobody left. It's stupid".

Personal life and death

Dassault married Nicole Raffel on 5 July 1950. They had four children: Olivier, Laurent,

Thierry Thierry is a French language, French male given name, derived from the Germanic languages, Germanic "Theodoric". It is the cognate of German language, German "Dietrich (disambiguation), Dietrich" and "Dieter (disambiguation), Dieter", English langu ...

, and Marie-Hélène. He died suddenly in his office at the Dassault Group headquarters in Paris on 28 May 2018, from heart failure at the age of 93.Décès de Serge Dassault
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References

External links