French Court Convicts Lafarge of Financing ISIS, Sentences Former CEO to Six Years
A Paris court found cement maker Lafarge and eight former executives guilty of paying millions to ISIS and al-Nusra to keep a Syrian factory running during the civil war. Former CEO Bruno Lafont was ordered immediately imprisoned in France's first corporate terrorism financing conviction.
The Paris Criminal Court on Monday convicted French cement company Lafarge and eight of its former executives of financing terrorism, finding they paid approximately 5.6 million euros to the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra between 2013 and 2014 to keep a cement factory operating in war-torn northern Syria.
Former CEO Bruno Lafont, 69, received six years in prison. The presiding judge ordered his immediate incarceration despite his lawyers' plans to appeal. Christian Herrault, the former deputy managing director, received five years. Syrian intermediary Firas Tlass was sentenced in absentia to seven years -- the harshest individual sentence. Five other former executives and managers received terms ranging from 18 months to five years.
Lafarge itself -- now a subsidiary of Swiss building-materials giant Holcim -- was fined 1.125 million euros, the maximum penalty under French law.
What Lafarge Paid For
The payments bought something simple: permission to keep working.
Lafarge had invested 680 million euros in a cement plant in Jalabiya, near the Turkish border, completed in 2010 -- a year before the Syrian civil war began. As fighting engulfed the region, most multinationals pulled out. Lafarge stayed.
Starting in 2013, the company's Syrian subsidiary funneled money through intermediaries to armed groups that controlled the territory around the plant. Roughly 3.1 million euros went to direct "security" payments, 1.9 million euros covered purchases of raw materials from IS-controlled suppliers, and 187,000 euros were paid directly to ISIS as taxes. In return, Lafarge's trucks and employees could move freely through checkpoints manned by groups actively perpetrating atrocities against the Syrian population.
The arrangement ended in September 2014 when ISIS seized the factory outright. By then, the plant had generated approximately $70 million in revenue during the period of payments.
Anti-terrorism prosecutors described the executives' decision-making as "astonishingly cynical," telling the court that Lafont "gave clear instructions" to maintain operations. Prosecutors emphasized there was "no doubt" the defendants understood where the money was going, calling the sums involved "amounts that make us dizzy" -- a record in French terrorism-financing jurisprudence.
A Decade to Accountability
The story first surfaced in February 2016 when Syrian outlet Zaman Al Wasl published details of the payments. Four months later, Le Monde ran its own investigation. The French government opened a judicial inquiry in June 2017, and in a landmark 2018 decision, investigating magistrates indicted Lafarge as a legal entity for terrorism financing -- a first in French law.
Eleven former Syrian Lafarge employees filed the original criminal complaint through the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and French anti-corruption NGO Sherpa in November 2016, providing testimony that became central to the prosecution's case.
The case first reached a conclusion across the Atlantic. In October 2022, Lafarge pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court to conspiring to provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations -- the first time an American court had brought such a charge against a corporation. The company agreed to pay $778 million: a $90.78 million criminal fine and $687 million in forfeiture. The DOJ's Statement of Facts revealed that Lafarge had also sought ISIS's help to squeeze out business competitors, effectively operating a "revenue sharing agreement" with a designated terrorist organization.
Monday's French verdict sets a broader precedent. It is the first time a French company has been convicted of financing terrorism, establishing that corporate criminal responsibility for international crimes need not rest solely with individuals.
What Comes Next
Lafont has announced he will appeal. A separate investigation into charges of complicity in crimes against humanity -- stemming from the argument that Lafarge's payments enabled ISIS to consolidate territorial control and commit atrocities -- remains open. If those charges proceed to trial, the legal exposure would be significantly more severe.
The eleven former Syrian employees who triggered the investigation were denied victim status in the terrorism financing case, a decision that may be challenged in the ongoing complicity proceedings.
Holcim, which merged with Lafarge in 2015, has distanced itself from the subsidiary's wartime conduct but cannot distance itself from the financial consequences: the $778 million U.S. penalty, Monday's French fine, and the unresolved crimes-against-humanity investigation that could carry far heavier sanctions.