French Court Convicts Lafarge of Terror Financing in Syria
A criminal court in Paris has convicted the French cement company Lafarge on charges of paying money to the Islamic State group and other jihadist factions to secure continued operations at its factory in Syria.
According to Agence France-Presse on Monday, April 13, the court concluded that Lafarge, later acquired by the Swiss group Holcim, paid millions of dollars in 2013 and 2014 through its subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria to jihadist groups and intermediaries to protect its cement plant in Jalabiya (northern Syria).
Presiding judge Isabelle Prévost-Desprez said that financing terrorist organizations, particularly the Islamic State group, was a key factor in enabling the organization to control natural resources in Syria, allowing it to finance terrorist acts inside the region and those planned abroad, especially in Europe.
Lafarge Cement Syria was accused of paying money in 2013 and 2014 to intermediaries to obtain the raw materials needed to run the plant from the Islamic State and other groups, and to ensure freedom of movement for the company’s trucks and employees. The ruling comes after Lafarge pleaded guilty in the United States in 2022 to providing material support to organizations designated by Washington as terrorist groups, and agreed to pay a $778 million fine.
Lafarge completed construction of the Jalabiya plant, which cost $680 million, in 2010. Islamic State fighters later seized large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014 and declared a “caliphate.”
While other multinational companies left Syria in 2012, Lafarge only evacuated its foreign staff. It kept its Syrian employees in place until September 2014, when Islamic State fighters took over the factory.
Alongside Lafarge, the list of defendants includes the company’s former chief executive, Bruno Lafont, five former officials from its operational or security divisions, and two Syrian intermediaries, one of whom was not present during the trial sessions. They are accused of financing terrorism and violating international sanctions.
Demand for Fines and Prison Terms
The French anti-terror prosecutor’s office in Paris had requested on December 16, 2025, that Lafarge Cement be fined 1.125 million euros and that eight former executives receive prison sentences of up to eight years.
The harshest prison sentence sought by prosecutors concerned the Syrian intermediary Firas Tlass, who is wanted under an international arrest warrant. Prosecutors also requested a six-year prison sentence, with a delayed detention order, for former group chief executive Bruno Lafont, a fine of 225,000 euros, and a 10-year ban on holding any commercial, industrial, or company management position.
As for Lafarge as a legal entity, prosecutors also requested the partial confiscation of assets worth up to 30 million euros. For its part, the French National Customs Intelligence and Investigations Directorate called for a joint customs fine of 4.570 million euros against the company and four defendants for what it described as the offense of failing to comply with international financial sanctions.
The judicial process in Paris began in 2017, following press reports and two complaints filed in 2016. One came from the French Ministry of Economy over violations of the financial embargo on Syria, and the second came from associations and 11 former employees of the company’s Syrian branch over the financing of terrorism.
In a parallel track, the new group that emerged after Holcim acquired Lafarge in 2015 launched an internal investigation and consistently denied any connection to the events that preceded the merger. Two years later, an investigation entrusted to the US law firm Baker McKenzie and the French firm Darrois concluded that there had been breaches of Lafarge’s business conduct rules.
French prosecutors seek fines and prison terms in Lafarge case
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