French entrepreneur and
politician Serge Dassault has died at the age of 93, his family has said.
Mr Dassault led the
Dassault group after his father, Marcel's, death in 1986. The group has
numerous firms in aeronautics and armaments and owns the French newspaper, Le
Figaro.
Mr Dassault was one of
France's richest men and ranked high on the billionaires list of both Bloomberg
and Forbes.
They put his worth at about
$26bn-$27bn (£19.5bn-£20bn).
Mr Dassault was also
involved in politics and had served as a conservative senator and a mayor of
Corbeil-Essonne, a southern suburb of Paris.
Former French President
Nicolas Sarkozy paid tribute to Mr Dassault, saying: "France has lost a
great industrialist, and I a friend."
French news channel BFMTV
reported that Mr Dassault died after he had a heart attack at the headquarters
of the Dassault Aviation group on Monday.
The Dassault Group holds a
majority stake in Dassault Aviation, the manufacturer of the Mirage and Rafale
fighter jets.
Last year, he was found
guilty of fraud by a Paris court after failing to disclose the full extent of
his wealth to the tax authorities and fined €2m (£1.75m; $2.3m).
No comments:
Post a Comment