Lafarge challenges its indictment for endangering others concerning its activities in Syria

The Court of Cassation will rule on March 14 on the appeal filed by Lafarge against its indictment for endangering others in the judicial investigation of its activities until 2014 in Syria, which also earned it to be prosecuted. for complicity in crimes against humanity.

During a hearing before the criminal chamber of the Court of Cassation, the company notably challenged the jurisdiction of the French courts concerning its indictment for endangering the lives of others, confirmed in May by the chamber of instructions from the Paris Court of Appeal.

The latter had also confirmed his indictment for complicity in crimes against humanity.

The group, now a subsidiary of Holcim, is suspected of having paid in 2013 and 2014, through its Syrian subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS), several million euros to jihadist groups, including the Islamic State (IS) organization. , and to intermediaries, in order to maintain the activity of a cement factory in Syria in Jalabiya, even as the country was sinking into the war.

In this context, Lafarge had maintained the activity of its Syrian employees on the site until September 2014, while its employees of foreign nationality had been evacuated in 2012.

As a result, Syrian employees were "exposed to various risks", in particular "extortion" and "kidnapping", underlined the reporting adviser during the hearing before the highest court of the French judicial order.

In May, the investigating chamber was based in particular on "the permanent interference of the parent company in the activity of its subsidiaries" to confirm the indictment of the group for endangering others.

Affirming that there was no case law on the question, Me Patrice Spinosi, lawyer for the cement manufacturer, asked on Tuesday that the criminal chamber seek its opinion on the question from the social chamber or refer the dispute to a mixed chamber for a adversarial debate on the applicability of French law in this case.

"The working relationship stemmed directly from the organization put in place by Lafarge", which "set itself the conditions of recruitment and work and framed the safety rules", observed for her part Me Catherine Bauer-Violas, lawyer for the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and two natural persons, civil parties.

While emphasizing that the questions of law raised were "unpublished", the Advocate General advocated the rejection of the appeal.