Four members of the well-known Dassault family of the eponymous French industrial and media group, Laurent, Thierry and Marie-Helene, accompanied by the mother Nicole, on Monday toured the Villa Allatini residence in Thessaloniki, the stately manor once owned by Noemi Allatini, their great-grandmother.
The grand residence was built in 1888 and today houses the region of Central Macedonia's administration offices. "We came to learn as much as we can. We hope to know as much as we can about our past because to build the future you have to know who your ancestors were," Laurent Dassault, the son of French tycoon Serge Dassault (chairman and CEO of Dassault Aviation and owner of Le Figaro), stressed.
The Dassault group was launched by Marcel, the son of Noemi and Adolphe Bloch, who changed his last name to Dassault during WWII, adopting an alias given to him by his brother Darius. Marcel's son, Serge, now 87, succeeded him as the head of the influential industrial group. Serge Dassault's wife and children were received by Deputy Regional Governor Apostolos Tzitzikostas, who noted that "we are welcoming you to your home".
Referring to the family's origin, he addressed his guests as "half Greeks" and suggested the establishment of a cultural foundation bearing the Dassault name, in cooperation with the French consulate in Thessaloniki.
On her part, Nicole Dassault stressed that she was not fortunate to have known the mother of her father-in-law and responded to the regional governor's greeting with a statement of appreciation in Greek.
The Dassault family is in Thessaloniki for the inauguration of a culture hall at the city's French Institute.
The matriarch of the family left Thessaloniki in 1909 just before the outbreak of the 1911 Turkish-Italian war and soon after Villa Allatini became the residence of Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid, who was placed in house arrest by members of the Young Turks movement. In 1912 Villa Allatini was used as a military hospital and in 1926 the building was used by the newly established University of Thessaloniki. During WWII it was again used as a hospital and in 1977 it was declared a cultural heritage monument.
In 1978 the building was transferred to the Thessaloniki prefecture authority. (AMNA)
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