In a historic legal milestone that marks the first time a corporation has stood trial on terrorism financing charges in France, Paris-based judges have delivered a guilty verdict against global cement manufacturer Lafarge for paying millions of dollars in extortion and protection payments to designated jihadist groups, including the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS), to maintain operations at its Syrian plant amid the country’s ongoing civil war. Eight former senior Lafarge employees, including the firm’s one-time chief executive officer Bruno Lafont, were also convicted of the same terrorism financing charges on Monday, with Lafont handed a six-year prison sentence by the court.
The judicial panel confirmed that between 2013 and 2014, at the height of escalating conflict in northern Syria, Lafarge transferred a total of $6.5 million (equivalent to €5.59 million or £4.83 million at current exchange rates) to armed militant groups to keep its Jalabiya cement factory operational. The plant, which Lafarge acquired for $680 million in 2008 and launched just months before the 2011 outbreak of the Syrian civil war, sat in territory that had fallen under the control of multiple jihadist factions by 2013.
Presiding judge Isabelle Prevost-Desprez outlined the gravity of the offenses in court, emphasizing that these direct payments allowed banned terrorist organizations to consolidate control over Syria’s critical natural resources, generating critical revenue that they used to fund violent attacks across the Middle East and into European countries. “It is clear to the court that the sole purpose of the funding of a terrorist organisation was to keep the Syrian plant running for economic reasons. Payments to terrorist entities enabled Lafarge to continue its operations,” Prevost-Desprez stated. She added that the financial arrangement amounted to “a genuine commercial partnership with IS.”
Prosecutors laid out details of the payments during the trial, explaining that Lafarge’s personnel were based in the nearby northern town of Manbij and were forced to cross the Euphrates River to reach the plant. Of the total transfers, roughly €800,000 went toward securing safe passage for staff and supplies, while an additional €1.6 million was paid to access raw material from quarries controlled directly by IS. Alongside IS, the court confirmed the Nusra Front—an al-Qaeda-affiliated group designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union and most of the global community—also received payments from the firm.
Beyond Lafont’s six-year sentence, Christian Herrault, Lafarge’s former deputy managing director, received a five-year prison term. Syrian former employee Firas Tlass, who directly facilitated the payments to militant groups, was sentenced in absentia to seven years behind bars. Herrault had defended his actions during the trial, arguing that the decision to keep the factory open stemmed from a sense of responsibility to local staff. “We could have washed our hands of it and walked away, but what would have happened to the factory’s employees?” he said.
Lafarge, which is now a subsidiary of Swiss building materials conglomerate Holcim, was fined more than €1 million ($1.3 million) as part of the verdict. The company has not yet issued an official public statement following the ruling, and a separate parallel investigation into allegations that the company was complicit in crimes against humanity remains ongoing.
This French conviction comes three years after a 2022 legal settlement in the United States, where Lafarge admitted to violating U.S. sanctions by providing support to designated terrorist groups and agreed to pay a $777.8 million (£687.2 million) penalty to resolve the charges. The case is widely regarded as a landmark precedent for corporate accountability in relation to business operations in conflict zones where terrorist groups control territory.
To provide context for the case, Syria’s civil war erupted in March 2011 after the regime of then-president Bashar al-Assad launched a brutal crackdown on peaceful anti-government protests. By 2014, IS had seized large swathes of territory across northern Syria and neighboring Iraq, declaring a transnational “caliphate” and enforcing a violent, extremist interpretation of Islamic law across the areas under its control.