France Prosecutes Major Cement Company for Suspected ISIS Funding

A French court on Tuesday opened the trial of cement giant Lafarge over allegations the company paid millions of euros to jihadist groups in Syria between 2013 and 2014 to keep a local plant running during the country’s civil war.

The Paris Criminal Court is hearing the case against the French company and eight other defendants accused of financing armed groups in war-torn Syria, including the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and the al-Nusrah Front (ANF), to keep its local subsidiary operating. The trial is scheduled to run until December 16.

Among the accused is former CEO Bruno Lafont, who led the multinational from 2007 to 2015, along with two Syrian intermediaries charged with “funding terrorism.” Judicial investigators say that from August 2013 to October 2014, Lafarge paid about $5.9 million to ISIS and ANF through monthly “security payments” and purchases of raw materials.

Lafarge, which was acquired by the Swiss group Holcim in 2015, invested roughly $680 million to build the plant in Jalabiyeh, northern Syria. It began operating in 2010, a year before the war broke out. The company repatriated its foreign staff in 2012 as fighting escalated, but Syrian workers continued to operate the facility.

Sherpa, the French anti-corruption NGO that filed a criminal complaint against Lafarge in 2016, said the case is a landmark moment for holding corporations accountable for complicity in human rights abuses.

“This trial marks the culmination of several years of work on corporate criminal liability,” Anna Kiefer, litigation and advocacy officer at Sherpa, told OCCRP. She said Sherpa and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) are seeking accountability and redress for Lafarge’s former Syrian employees.

“Instead of investing in the protection of its Syrian employees during wartime, Lafarge was financing armed groups. Nine years after filing this complaint, we still hope for justice,” said Mohammad, one of the 11 former Syrian workers who brought the case.

Media investigations in 2016 first revealed Lafarge’s financial ties to ISIS, reporting the company paid up to 13 million euros to secure deliveries, negotiate passage through checkpoints, and obtain raw materials.

In a parallel case in the United States, Lafarge pleaded guilty in 2022 to providing material support to ISIS and agreed to pay $778 million in fines. The U.S. Justice Department said the company entered a “revenue-sharing agreement” with the militant group that allowed it to keep the plant running and generate more than $70 million in revenue. As part of the plea, Lafarge admitted falsifying records and backdating contracts to conceal the payments.