French aviation tycoon, ex-senator and tax fraudster Serge Dassault dead at 93

One of France’s richest men, aviation tycoon Serge Dassault, died on Monday after suffering a suspected heart attack, his family said. He was 93.

Dassault, head of aviation, media and software giant Dassault Group, was a titan of the French business world who served as a right-wing senator and a scandal-plagued mayor of a town south of the capital.

France’s third wealthiest person in 2016 – with a net worth estimated by Forbes magazine at US$14.8 billion (12.7 billion euros) – died in his Paris office on the Champs-Elysees on Monday afternoon, his family said.

Dassault is best known as the principal stakeholder of Dassault Aviation, which has made a series of famed French planes, including the Falcon business jet, the Mirage fighter and the country’s most cutting-edge military jet, the Rafale.

“France has a lost a man who dedicated his life to developing a jewel of French industry,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement that came amid a flurry of tributes.

Nicolas Sarkozy, whom Dassault strongly backed when as France’s president, paid tribute to a “friend” who he said was a “visionary able to anticipate the world to come without losing the meaning of the present.”