Marcel Dassault (born Marcel Ferdinand Bloch; 23 January 1892 – 17 April 1986) was a French engineer and industrialist who spent his career in aircraft manufacturing.
Born on 23 January 1892 in Paris, he was the youngest of the four children of Adolphe Bloch, a doctor, and his wife Noémie Allatini. His parents were Jewish.
He was educated at Lycée Condorcet in Paris. After studies in electrical engineering, he graduated from the Breguet School and Supaéro. At the latter school, Bloch was classmates with a Russian student named Mikhail Gurevich, who would later be instrumental in the creation of the MiG aircraft series.
Bloch worked at the French Aeronautics Research Laboratory at Chalais-Meudon during World War I and invented a type of aircraft propeller subsequently used by the French army during the conflict. In 1916, with Henry Potez and Louis Coroller, he formed a company, the Société d'Études Aéronautiques, to produce the SEA series of fighters.
