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French Court Investigates Lafarge’s Links to Terrorism in Syria

The Lafarge Cement Company in Jalabiya, near Raqqa, northern Syria in 2018. (Getty Images)
The Lafarge Cement Company in Jalabiya, near Raqqa, northern Syria in 2018. (Getty Images)
    Paris, London - Asharq Al-Awsat
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French Court Investigates Lafarge’s Links to Terrorism in Syria

The Lafarge Cement Company in Jalabiya, near Raqqa, northern Syria in 2018. (Getty Images)
The Lafarge Cement Company in Jalabiya, near Raqqa, northern Syria in 2018. (Getty Images)

The Court of Cassation, France’s highest judicial body, will investigate Tuesday the activities of industrial company Lafarge in Syria until 2014.

A year and a half ago, the Paris Court of Appeal dropped the charge of “complicity in crimes against humanity” against Lafarge, however, the Court of Cassation is considering six appeals in which the company remains prosecuted for “terrorist financing.”

The group and its two former executives, former security director Jean-Claude Veillard and an ex-director of Lafarge's Syrian subsidiary, Frederic Jolibois are contesting the charges.

Meanwhile, a number of associations want to be a civil party in the case, and former employees of Lafarge in Syria are fighting against dropping the charge of “complicity in crimes against humanity.”

The judicial investigation was launched in June 2017 after complaints submitted by the French Ministry of Economy and Finance, Sherpa, and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).

Lafarge SA group was suspected of paying nearly €13 million via its Syrian subsidiary to extremist groups, including ISIS, to keep its operation going.

It is also suspected that the group sold cement for ISIS’ benefit and paid middlemen to obtain raw materials from militant factions.

An internal report requested by Lafarge-Holcim, which resulted from the merger between French Lafarge and Swiss Holcim in 2015, revealed that the company paid intermediaries to negotiate with “armed groups.” However, the group has always denied any responsibility in relation to the recipient of these funds.

In June 2018, prosecutions were underway against eight officials from the group. Paris investigative judges indicted the group as a legal entity, on charges of “complicity in crimes against humanity”, “financing terrorism”, “violation of the embargo” and “endangering” its workers’ lives in its factory in Jalabiya, northern Syria.

The Court of Cassation will discuss whether the most serious criminal descriptions are appropriate in this file.

The court will choose whether the company was knowingly “financing a terrorist project” without necessarily having specific motives, or it was “complicit in crimes against humanity,” which requires proof of intent with prior knowledge of and joining a more visible criminal scheme.

The judges of the Court of Cassation will also consider "serious and clear evidence" necessary to press other charges.

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Arab World

Hundreds of Thousands Flee as Israel Seizes Rafah in New Gaza 'Security Zone'

A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)
A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)
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Hundreds of Thousands Flee as Israel Seizes Rafah in New Gaza 'Security Zone'

A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)
A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)

Hundreds of thousands of fleeing Gazans sought shelter on Thursday in one of the biggest mass displacements of the war, as Israeli forces advanced into the ruins of the city of Rafah, part of a newly announced "security zone" they intend to seize.

A day after declaring their intention to capture large swathes of the crowded enclave, Israeli force pushed into the city on Gaza's southern edge which had served as a last refuge for people fleeing other areas for much of the war, reported Reuters.

Gaza's health ministry reported at least 97 people killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, including at least 20 killed in an airstrike around dawn in Shejaia suburb of Gaza City.

Rafah "is gone, it is being wiped out," a father of seven among the hundreds of thousands who had fled from Rafah to neighboring Khan Younis, told Reuters via a chat app.

"They are knocking down what is left standing of houses and property," said the man who declined to be identified for fear of repercussions.

After a strike killed several people in Khan Younis, Adel Abu Fakher was checking the damage to his tent.

"Is anything left for us? There’s nothing left for us. We’re being killed while asleep," he said.

The assault to capture Rafah is a major escalation in the war, which Israel restarted last month after effectively abandoning a ceasefire in place since January.

GAZANS FEAR PERMANENT DEPOPULATION

Israel has not spelled out its longterm aims for the security zone its troops are now seizing. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayahu said troops were taking an area he called the "Morag Axis", a reference to an abandoned former Israeli settlement once located between Rafah on Gaza's southern edge and the adjacent main southern city Khan Younis.

Gazans who had returned to homes in the ruins during the ceasefire have now been ordered to flee communities on the northern and southern edges of the strip.

They fear that Israel's intention is to depopulate those areas indefinitely, leaving many hundreds of thousands of people permanently homeless in one of the poorest and most crowded territories on earth. The security zone includes some of Gaza's last agricultural land and critical water infrastructure.

Since the first phase of the ceasefire expired at the start of March with no agreement to prolong it, Israel has imposed a total blockade on all goods reaching Gaza's 2.3 million residents, recreating what international organizations describe as a humanitarian catastrophe after weeks of relative calm.

Israel's stated goal since the start of the war has been the destruction of the Hamas group which ran Gaza for nearly two decades and led the attack on Israeli communities in October 2023 that precipitated the war.

But with no effort made to establish an alternative administration, Hamas-led police returned to the streets during the ceasefire. Fighters still hold 59 dead and living hostages which Israel says must be handed over to extend the truce; Hamas says it will free them only under a deal that ends the war.

Israeli leaders say they have been encouraged by signs of protest in Gaza against Hamas, with hundreds of people demonstrating in north Gaza's Beit Lahiya on Wednesday opposing the war and demanding Hamas quit power. Hamas calls the protesters collaborators and says Israel is behind them.

The war began with a Hamas attack on Israeli communities on October 7, 2023 with gunmen killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies. Israel's campaign has so far killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, Gaza health authorities say.

Rafah residents said most of the local population had followed Israel's order to leave, as Israeli strikes toppled buildings there. But a strike on the main road between Khan Younis and Rafah stopped most movement between the two cities.

Movement of people and traffic along the western coastal road near Morag was also limited by bombardment, said residents.

"Others stayed because they don't know where to go, or got fed up of being displaced several times. We are afraid they might be killed or at best detained," said Basem, a resident of Rafah who declined to give a second name.

Markets have emptied and prices for basic necessities have soared under Israel's total blockade of food, medicine and fuel.

The Palestinian Health Ministry, which is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank but has nominal authority over hospitals in Gaza, said Gaza's entire healthcare system was at risk of collapse.