Serge_Dassault

Serge Dassault

Serge Dassault

French businessman and politician (1925–2018)


Serge Dassault (French: [sɛʁʒ daso]; born Serge Paul André Bloch; 4 April 1925 – 28 May 2018) was a French engineer, businessman and politician.[1] He was the chairman and chief executive officer of Dassault Group, and a conservative politician. According to Forbes, Dassault's net worth was estimated in 2016 at US$15 billion.[2]

Quick Facts Member of the French Senate for Essonne, Succeeded by ...

Early life and education

He was the younger son of Madeleine Dassault (née Minckès)[3] and Marcel Dassault (born Marcel Ferdinand Bloch),[4] from whom he inherited the Dassault Group. Both his parents were of Jewish heritage, but later converted to Roman Catholicism.

In 1929, his father founded what is now Dassault Aviation.[5] During the Second World War, he was jailed when his father was sent to Buchenwald for refusing any cooperation from his company, Bordeaux-Aéronautique, directed by Henri Déplante, André Curvale and Claude de Cambronne, with the German aviation industry.[citation needed]

He studied at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly in the 16th arrondissement of Paris where he received his baccalauréat. He earned engineering degrees from the École Polytechnique (class of 1946) and Supaéro (class of 1951). In 1963, he received an Executive MBA from HEC Paris.[6]

Business career

After his father's death in 1986, Serge Dassault continued developing the company, with the help of CEOs Charles Edelstenne and Éric Trappier.[citation needed] His group also owned the newspaper Le Figaro. 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).[citation needed]

According to Forbes, the Dassault family also owns a winery, property in Paris, and an art auction house.[7]

Political career

Dassault was a member of the Union for a Popular Movement 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, a southern suburb of Paris.[citation needed]

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.[citation needed] In 2005, he inaugurated the €2 million Islamic cultural centre (comprising a mosque) in his city of Corbeil-Essonnes.[8] In November 2012, responding to the Ayrault government's plan to legalise same-sex marriage in France, he controversially said, during an interview for France Culture, 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".[9]

Personal life and death

Grave of Serge Dassault in Paris

Dassault married Nicole Raffel on 5 July 1950. They had four children: Olivier, Laurent, Thierry, and Marie-Hélène.[10][user-generated source]

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.[11][5]

See also


References

  1. "Serge Dassault". Who's Who in France. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
  2. Adams, Henri. "Serge Dassault — pg.19". Forbes. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  3. "Madame a Prisoner Before", Ottawa Citizen, 25 May 1964.
  4. Jean Mayet (19 September 2013). 365 jours ou Les Éphémérides allant du XVIe au XXe siècle (in French). Mon Petit Éditeur. p. 220. ISBN 978-2-342-01183-8.
  5. Au-Yeung, Angel. "Billionaire French Businessman Serge Dassault Dies At 93". Forbes. Retrieved 29 May 2018.
  6. "HEC Alumni". www.hecalumni.fr. Retrieved 19 February 2018.
  7. "Serge Dassault & family". Forbes.com. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  8. "le petit monde de bernard gaudin". gaudin.ber.free.fr. Retrieved 11 September 2016.
  9. "Décès de Serge Dassault". LEFIGARO. 28 May 2018.

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