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DEAD: French billionaire and politician Olivier Dassault. Photo: Szwarc Henri / ABACA / ABACA
French billionaire and politician Olivier Dassault, 69, died Sunday in a helicopter crash in the town of Touques in Calvados.
The helicopter pilot must also be dead, reports Le Parisien.
French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Twitter that Dassault loved France and that the billionaire never stopped “serving the country.”
According to the Oise ministry senator, whom Dassault represented in the French National Assembly, the billionaire is said to have gone to Deauville in Calvados over the weekend, where he owns a resort.
He was originally supposed to return to Oise on Sunday night by helicopter, but that was not the case. The cause of the accident is not yet known.
– I am in shock, infinitely traumatized, says the mayor of Beauvais, Caroline Cayeux, about the tragic news.
Dassault was a director of the Figaro group and, according to Forbes, it was worth more than NOK 60 billion. The group owns, among other things, the leading French newspaper Le Figaro.
He and the three brothers inherited the fortune from their father, industry and media mogul Serge Dassault when he died in 2018. Olivier Dassault held a leadership position at the family-owned Dassault Group.
