According to a press release sent to AFP, Lafarge, found guilty of financing terrorism in Syria in 2013-2014, declared that it took “note” of the decision, and is “currently examining the court’s reasoning”.
Publi-Information 
“Gentlemen police officers, please arrest Mr. Lafont and Mr. Herrault“: this is the shock sentence pronounced Monday April 13, 2026 by the President of the Paris Criminal Court, Isabelle Prévost-Desprezafter nearly four hours of reading the judgment like a historic trial. In fact, this is the first time that a multinational is tried in France for having financed terrorist organizations.
THE Paris Criminal Court therefore found Lafarge guilty of financing a terrorist enterprise as part of its activity in Syria in the early 2010s. The group takes note of the decision and indicates that it is examining its consequences, even though the facts judged date back more than a decade.
A judicial decision on facts dating back more than a decade
Lafarge SA indicated that it took note of the court’s decisionrendered at the end of a procedure relating to facts that occurred more than ten years ago, in violation according to the company of its internal code of conduct. Became since entity integrated into the Swiss Holcim group following the merger in 2015the company specifies that this decision is part of the processing of an old file and that it is currently examining the legal reasoning.
Alongside Lafarge were judged the former CEO of the French cement manufacturer Bruno Lafont, five ex-managers of the operational chain or the security chain and two Syrian intermediaries, one of whom is the subject of an arrest warrant international.
In this file, the French group is suspected of having paid in 2013 and 2014, via its Syrian subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS), several million euros to jihadist rebel groups – including some, such as the Islamic State (IS) organization and Jabhat al-Nusra, were classified as “terrorists” – in order to maintain the activity of a cement factory in Jalabiya, in northern Syria. SO that the other multinationals had left the country in 2012, Lafarge only evacuated that year its employees of foreign nationality, and maintained the activity of its Syrian employees until September 2014, date on which theISIS took control of the factory.
Lafarge guilty of financing a terrorist company
THE court found Lafarge guilty of financing a terrorist enterprise for payments made in 2013 and 2014 via its subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS), for an amount estimated at 5.6 million euros.
In this case, the company had already reached an agreement in 2022 in the United States, with the payment of a fine of $778 million as part of a guilty plea.
In France, the Paris Criminal Court pronounced a maximum fine of 1.125 million euros for financing terrorismas well as a customs fine of 4.57 million euros imposed jointly with four former executives for non-compliance with international financial sanctions.
