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
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 ...
. 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 ''
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 ...
'', 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]
/ref>
See also
* List of French people by net worth
The following is a list of French billionaires is based on an annual assessment of wealth and assets compiled and published by ''Forbes'' magazine in 2023, according to ''Forbes'' list of billionaires.
2023 Forbes List
See also
* List of French ...
* The World's Billionaires
''The World's Billionaires'' is an annual ranking by documented net worth of the wealthiest billionaires in the world, compiled and published in March annually by the American business magazine ''Forbes''. The list was first published in March ...
References
External links
Serge Dassault and family
– ''Forbes'' profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dassault, Serge
1925 births
2018 deaths
Politicians from Paris
Serge
French Roman Catholics
French people of Jewish descent
National Centre of Independents and Peasants politicians
Rally for the Republic politicians
Union for a Popular Movement politicians
Gaullism, a way forward for France
French Senators of the Fifth Republic
Mayors of places in Île-de-France
French chief executives
French aerospace engineers
Corps de l'armement
Businesspeople in aviation
Dassault Group
French billionaires
Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism
French magazine publishers (people)
French mass media owners
French male writers
20th-century French newspaper publishers (people)
21st-century French newspaper publishers (people)
Lycée Janson-de-Sailly alumni
Lycée Saint-Louis alumni
École Polytechnique alumni
Supaéro alumni
HEC Paris alumni
Grand Officiers of the Légion d'honneur
Recipients of the Aeronautical Medal
Senators of Essonne
French politicians convicted of corruption