Serge Dassault
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Serge Dassault | |
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Member of the French Senate for Essonne | |
In office 1 October 2004 – 1 October 2017 | |
Succeeded by | Laure Darcos |
Mayor of Corbeil-Essonnes | |
In office 1995–2009 | |
Preceded by | Marie-Anne Lesage |
Succeeded by | Jean-Pierre Bechter |
Personal details | |
Born | Serge Paul André Bloch 4 April 1925 Paris, France |
Died | 28 May 2018 Paris, France | (aged 93)
Resting place | Passy Cemetery, Paris |
Spouse |
Nicole Raffel (m. 1950) |
Children | Olivier Dassault Laurent Dassault Thierry Dassault Marie-Hélène Dassault |
Parent(s) | Marcel Dassault Madeleine Minckès |
Relatives | Darius Paul Dassault (uncle) |
Education | Lycée Janson-de-Sailly Lycée Saint-Louis |
Alma mater | École Polytechnique SUPAERO HEC Paris |
Occupation | Businessman |
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]
Early life and education
[edit]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
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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
[edit]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
[edit]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
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Serge Dassault". Who's Who in France. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
- ^ Adams, Henri. "Serge Dassault — pg.19". Forbes. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
- ^ "Madame a Prisoner Before", Ottawa Citizen, 25 May 1964.
- ^ 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.
- ^ a b Au-Yeung, Angel. "Billionaire French Businessman Serge Dassault Dies At 93". Forbes. Retrieved 29 May 2018.
- ^ "HEC Alumni". www.hecalumni.fr. Retrieved 19 February 2018.
- ^ "Serge Dassault & family". Forbes.com. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
- ^ "le petit monde de bernard gaudin". gaudin.ber.free.fr. Retrieved 11 September 2016.
- ^ "Dassault, les homos, et la Grèce antique", Libération, 7 November 2012
- ^ familiale.
- ^ "Décès de Serge Dassault". LEFIGARO. 28 May 2018.
External links
[edit]- Serge Dassault and family – Forbes profile
- 1925 births
- 2018 deaths
- Politicians from Paris
- Dassault family
- 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 Officers of the Legion of Honour
- Recipients of the Aeronautical Medal
- Senators of Essonne
- French politicians convicted of corruption
- Burials at Passy Cemetery