France asked the United States in 2014 not to bomb a Lafarge cement plant in northern Syria, an area which was at the time controlled by Islamic State, emails that are part of an investigation into the company’s Syria operations show, reports Reuters.
French prosecutors last year launched a probe into the suspected “financing of a terrorist enterprise” by the cement group in Syria. The company admitted last year it had paid armed groups to keep a factory operating.
“This French investment should be protected,” France’s Syria envoy, Franck Gellet, who is based in Paris, said in a Sept. 19, 2014 email to senior foreign ministry officials, referring to the Lafarge plant about 87 km (54 miles) from Raqqa.
“It seems legitimate that we ask Washington not to do anything about this site without checking with us first,” Gellet said in the email, that included the plant’s GPS coordinates.
The email is among a cache of correspondence sent by Gellet, Lafarge’s then security chief Jean-Claude Veillard and other French officials, seen by Reuters.
Gellet could not be reached for comment.
It comes as French leader Emmanuel Macron discusses Syria with U.S. President Donald Trump, pressing his American counterpart to keep his forces in place to ensure the militants do not regroup.
Another email dated Oct. 2, 2014, also part of the judicial investigation, showed the request had been transmitted to U.S. officials.
“This is to confirm that the site mentioned by your interlocutor was mentioned by our military to their U.S. colleagues and is now registered in the appropriate list,” the email sent to Gellet said.
Lafarge merged with Swiss company Holcim in 2015 to become LafargeHolcim.