06-main-dossier.md - Carrefour S.A.

Key Findings

• Economic/Settlements: Carrefour’s Israeli franchisee, Global Retail C.I. Ltd, operates two Carrefour-branded stores inside occupied territory (Maccabim in the West Bank and Neve Ya’akov in occupied East Jerusalem), plus six additional stores under legacy Yenot Bitan/Mehadrin Market banners in the West Bank settlements of Ariel, Alfei Menashe, Modi’in Illit, Kokhav Ya’akov, Beit El and Ma’ale Adumim.¹²
• Military logistics: The Israeli franchisee supplied food and beverages worth NIS 33,705 to COGAT - the Israeli military body administering the occupied West Bank and Gaza - in 2024, and a Carrefour Israel branch publicly fundraised for IDF soldiers and distributed food parcels to troops in October 2023.¹³
• Political/Governance: CEO Alexandre Bompard has repeatedly and publicly denied any Carrefour presence in occupied territory (“there have never been and there will never be any Carrefour stores in occupied territory”), a statement directly contradicted by documented store locations.²
• Not found: No public evidence identifies Carrefour S.A. itself holding direct defence contracts, producing dual-use or mil-spec products, or integrating into Israeli weapons-prime supply chains; the extensive military/infrastructure contracting found in this record belongs to ELCO Group sibling entities under group attribution, not to Carrefour S.A.’s direct conduct.⁴

Target Profile

Key Facts:

• Franchise agreement with Electra Consumer Products signed March 2022; ~50 stores launched simultaneously in May 2023; network grew to 97 branches by June 2024 and approximately 148 branches by March 2026, employing roughly 4,000 people.⁷¹²
• COGAT food/beverage supply, NIS 33,705 in 2024 (NIS 9,610 for events).¹
• Two Carrefour-branded stores confirmed in occupied territory as of March 2026 (Maccabim, Neve Ya’akov); six further stores under other franchise banners in West Bank settlements.¹²
• All Jordan operations closed November 2024 following a boycott campaign over reported soldier support and settlement ties.⁸⁹¹⁰

Executive Summary

Carrefour S.A., a French Euronext-listed multinational retailer, is not a direct owner-operator in Israel. It entered the Israeli market in May 2023 through a 20-year franchise agreement (signed March 2022, extended by seven years in February 2024) with Electra Consumer Products, under which the Israeli operating company - Global Retail C.I. Ltd, formerly Yenot Bitan - licenses the Carrefour brand, imports over 1,200 Carrefour-labelled SKUs, and independently finances, staffs and locates its own store network.⁷¹ Carrefour S.A. holds no equity stake in the Israeli entity; its exposure is a brand-licensing and royalty relationship, reinforced by an estimated NIS 250 million capital commitment at launch and celebrated publicly by both companies as Carrefour’s 50th country of operation.¹¹¹

The documented nexus to Israel/Palestine runs almost entirely through this franchise structure rather than through Carrefour S.A.’s direct conduct. The franchisee operates two Carrefour-branded stores inside occupied territory - Maccabim in the West Bank and Neve Ya’akov in occupied East Jerusalem - alongside six further stores under legacy Yenot Bitan and Mehadrin Market banners in West Bank settlements (Ariel, Alfei Menashe, Modi’in Illit, Kokhav Ya’akov, Beit El and Ma’ale Adumim), reaching additional settlements via an online delivery platform.¹² The franchisee has a documented, low-value but continuing commercial supply relationship with COGAT, the Israeli military body governing the occupied territories, and in October 2023 an individual Jerusalem branch publicly fundraised for and distributed food parcels to IDF soldiers - conduct CEO Bompard has characterised as unauthorised, store-level action rather than corporate policy, and which he says ended by mid-October 2023.¹²³ Under group attribution, ELCO Group - the ultimate parent of Electra Consumer Products - has sibling subsidiaries (Electra Ltd, FK Generators, Electra Power/Supergas, Megason Electronics) with extensive, well-documented direct contracts with the Israeli Ministry of Defence, IDF, Israel Prison Service, Border Police and Elbit Systems, and construction of settlement infrastructure; these are operationally distinct entities from the Carrefour franchisee, but share ultimate ownership.⁴¹²

What is not supported by the evidence is any direct Carrefour S.A. conduct in the military or digital-surveillance domains. No public evidence identifies Carrefour S.A. holding defence contracts, manufacturing or marketing dual-use or mil-spec products, appearing in SIBAT or export-control records, or supplying components to Elbit Systems, IAI, Rafael or IMI Systems. No public evidence identifies Carrefour deploying Israeli-origin surveillance, biometric or predictive-policing technology, participating in Project Nimbus or any Israeli government cloud initiative, or operating data-centre infrastructure in Israel. Carrefour’s commercial technology partnerships with Israeli start-ups (AI21 Labs, Juganu, Iguazio, Vulcan, Cymbio, Foodsmarter, later A2Z Cust2Mate and Pairzon) are retail-innovation collaborations, not defence or intelligence relationships, though one partner (Juganu) is separately documented as commercially active in the settlements of Har Homa and Beitar Illit.¹¹¹¹³

Corporate governance is the domain with the clearest documentary contradiction: CEO Bompard has repeatedly and publicly stated, in 2023, 2024 and May 2025, that “there have never been and there will never be any Carrefour stores in occupied territory” - a claim directly and repeatedly contradicted by the confirmed presence of Carrefour-branded stores in Maccabim and Neve Ya’akov.² A partial settlement-product withdrawal in August–September 2024 left the underlying franchise and store infrastructure intact and was characterised by civil society as a cosmetic measure.¹⁴¹ Boycott mobilisation attributable in material part to these issues - including a full closure of Jordan operations in November 2024 amid a ~75% pre-exit sales decline - coincided with a steep group-level profit decline (from €1.659 billion in FY2023 to €723 million in FY2024, a 56% fall), though simultaneous, non-Israel-related market exits (Italy, Argentina, and boycott-driven exits in Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait) are documented as compounding factors.¹⁵⁹⁸⁵

Taken together, the evidence record supports a moderate-to-severe Economic and Political nexus (settlement retail presence, COGAT supply, public mischaracterisation of that presence) and materially weaker Military and Digital nexuses (confined to a low-value logistics contract and group-attributed sibling-entity conduct, with no direct Carrefour S.A. defence or surveillance-technology involvement identified). This produces a BRS of 617, Tier B (Severe), driven by the Economic score of 8.50 as the ceiling (V_MAX) and reinforced by a Political score of 6.68, against Military (0.15) and Digital (0.03) scores that reflect the near-total absence of direct military or digital-technology evidence against the parent entity.

Timeline of Relevant Events

Corporate Overview

Carrefour S.A. is a Euronext Paris-listed French multinational retailer with no direct corporate structure inside Israel. Its Israeli presence is entirely mediated through a franchise vehicle: Global Retail C.I. Ltd (formerly Yenot Bitan, trading as Carrefour Israel), which serves as importer of record and sole operator of the Carrefour brand in Israel under a franchise agreement signed with Electra Consumer Products in March 2022 and extended in February 2024.⁷¹ Carrefour Group France holds no identified equity stake in Global Retail C.I. Ltd; its relationship is licensing and royalty-based.¹

Global Retail C.I. Ltd’s ownership includes Electra Consumer Products (TASE: ECP, 49.49%), the Bitan family (22.56% each for Nurit Bitan and Nachum Menachem Bitan), PHF Group (16.03%) and Phoenix Financial (11.9%).¹ Electra Consumer Products is itself linked to ELCO Ltd, a diversified Israeli holding group controlled by the Salkind brothers (Daniel and Michael), whose sibling subsidiaries - Electra Ltd, Electra Infrastructure, Electra Power/Supergas, FK Generators, Megason Electronics and Control - operate in construction, infrastructure and industrial services and hold the extensive Israeli defence and settlement-infrastructure contracts documented under Group Attribution in this dossier.⁶⁴ These sibling entities are operationally and legally distinct from Global Retail C.I. Ltd, the Carrefour franchise vehicle, though they share an ultimate corporate parent.

The Israeli franchise network expanded from approximately 50 stores at May 2023 launch to 97 branches by June 2024, and approximately 148 branches by March 2026, employing roughly 4,000 people across 170,000 m² of retail space (cumulative franchisee capital expenditure of NIS 425 million as of mid-2025).⁷¹² Two of these branches - Maccabim and Neve Ya’akov - operate under full Carrefour branding inside occupied territory; six further branches under legacy Yenot Bitan and Mehadrin Market banners operate in West Bank settlements, and an online delivery platform additionally serves East Jerusalem settlement blocs, Modi’in Illit, Givat Ze’ev and Ma’ale Adumim.¹² Outside Israel, Carrefour’s franchise relationship with Majid Al Futtaim in Jordan, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait ended in November 2024, with Jordan operations fully closed following a boycott campaign.⁸⁹¹⁰

Domain Summaries

Military: Military

Mechanism of Involvement

No public evidence identifies Carrefour S.A. holding direct contracts, framework agreements or MOUs with the Israeli Ministry of Defence, IDF, Israel Prison Service or Border Police, nor any Carrefour S.A. appearance in SIBAT listings or defence-exhibition catalogues.⁴ The documented military nexus operates at two removes from the parent: (1) the Israeli franchisee, Global Retail C.I. Ltd, has a low-value commercial supply relationship with COGAT (NIS 33,705 in food and beverages in 2024) and engaged in a store-level October 2023 fundraiser and food-parcel distribution to IDF soldiers;¹²³ and (2) ELCO Group sibling subsidiaries - sharing an ultimate parent with Electra Consumer Products but operationally distinct from the retail franchise - hold extensive, separately documented Israeli defence contracts, including the NIS 330 million Camp Ariel Sharon training campus (2017), generator supply to the IDF during the 2014 Gaza assault (FK Generators), Border Police and Israel Prison Service infrastructure contracts, the NIS 140 million Israel Police National Campus, a 2024 national electronic-monitoring contract with the Israel Prison Service (SuperCom/Electra), and security-infrastructure installation at Elbit Systems facilities (Megason Electronics).⁴ ELCO’s Electra Power/Supergas subsidiary is described in the company’s own disclosures as “the exclusive gas supplier of the Israel Defense Forces and the country’s Police and Prison systems services for many years,” and Elco’s CEO confirmed on a 2024 earnings call that “the IDF is a major client.”⁴

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

Carrefour S.A. itself has no identified direct defence contract, dual-use product line, or supply relationship with any Israeli defence prime; the COGAT supply contract is modest in value (under $10,000 in 2024) and consists of ordinary food-service catering rather than security-relevant goods.¹ CEO Bompard has stated that store-level soldier-support activity in October 2023 was “individual initiatives by individuals working in our stores” and had ceased by mid-October 2023, with “no longer any donation, any aid provided to the Israeli army.”² The extensive ELCO Group defence contracting is attributable to sibling subsidiaries under common ultimate ownership, not to Carrefour S.A. or to the Carrefour-branded retail franchise itself; no transitive corporate control or operational integration between the retail franchisee and the ELCO defence-contracting subsidiaries has been identified.

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Global Retail C.I. Ltd (COGAT supply, October 2023 soldier fundraiser); ELCO Ltd / Electra Ltd / Electra Infrastructure / Electra Power (Supergas Power 2019 Ltd) / FK Generators / Megason Electronics and Control (1978) Ltd (defence and security-sector contracting, group attribution); SuperCom (2024 Prison Service monitoring contract, joint with Electra); Elbit Systems (recipient of Megason facility-security installation).¹²⁴³

Digital: Digital

Mechanism of Involvement

Carrefour Israel announced commercial partnerships with six Israeli technology start-ups in May 2023 - AI21 Labs, Juganu, Iguazio, Vulcan, Cymbio and Foodsmarter - as part of a retail-innovation programme, later adding a 2025 partnership with AI marketing platform Pairzon and an April 2026, $50 million five-year agreement with A2Z Cust2Mate to deploy 4,000 smart shopping carts across all 97 (at the time) Carrefour Israel branches, granting the Israeli vendor exclusive retail-media and data-monetisation rights.¹¹¹⁵¹³ One of the six original partners, Juganu - a smart lighting and sensor company - is separately documented as active in the West Bank settlements of Beitar Illit and Har Homa.¹

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

No public evidence identifies Carrefour using Israeli-origin surveillance, biometric, predictive-policing or workforce-monitoring technology, despite such vendors (Trigo, BriefCam, AnyVision/Oosto, Trax) serving comparable retailers. No public evidence identifies Carrefour operating or leasing data-centre infrastructure in Israel, participating in Project Nimbus or any Israeli government cloud programme, or providing AI/algorithmic systems to Israeli state, military or security bodies. No public evidence identifies Carrefour maintaining R&D facilities, engineering offices or accelerator programmes in Israel, or acquiring Israeli technology companies. The identified technology relationships are commercial retail-innovation partnerships rather than defence, intelligence or surveillance engagements.

Named Entities and Evidence Map

AI21 Labs, Juganu, Iguazio, Vulcan, Cymbio, Foodsmarter (May 2023 partnerships); Pairzon (2025 partnership); A2Z Cust2Mate (April 2026 smart-cart agreement).¹¹¹⁵¹³

Economic: Economic

Mechanism of Involvement

The Israeli franchise, operated by Global Retail C.I. Ltd, is the dossier’s principal economic vector. More than 1,200 Carrefour-branded products (approximately 1,650 SKUs by 2024) are imported by the franchisee, with some manufactured locally in Israel under the Carrefour label.¹ The franchisee sources domestically from Tnuva, whose dairy and poultry products originate from West Bank settlements (Almog, Shadmot Mehola, Kalia, Rosh Tzurim), and sells Golan Heights-origin wines.¹ Carrefour-labelled goods reach settlement shelves via the franchisee’s pre-existing distribution network in Ariel, Alfei Menashe, Ma’ale Adumim, Beit El, Modi’in Illit and Kokhav Ya’akov, and via an online platform serving East Jerusalem and additional settlements.¹² Carrefour Group France invested an amount equivalent to NIS 250 million (~$68 million) at market entry via a long-term franchise arrangement rather than direct equity.¹¹¹ The franchisee secured loans from four Israeli banks listed in the UN OHCHR settlement database (Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, Mizrahi Tefahot, Israel Discount Bank) in early 2023, and entered a credit-card partnership with Bank Hapoalim in August 2022.¹⁴¹² In April 2026, Carrefour was selected as the sole participant in the Israeli government’s “Israeli Basket” subsidy programme (~NIS 50 million), a scheme that excluded West Bank settlement stores and drew public criticism from former PM Naftali Bennett for that exclusion.¹

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

Carrefour Group France holds no direct equity stake in the Israeli franchisee and no identified factories, data centres, logistics hubs or real-estate holdings in Israel or the occupied territories; all operational investment sits at the franchisee level.¹ No evidence was found of Carrefour Group France holdings in Israeli sovereign bonds, Israeli-domiciled companies, or Israel Bonds instruments, and no major Carrefour Group shareholder has been identified as Israeli-domiciled or as holding material stakes in Israeli companies.⁵ Carrefour did take a partial corrective step, withdrawing Carrefour-branded products from settlement stores in August–September 2024, though the underlying franchise and store infrastructure continued operating and the measure was characterised by civil society as cosmetic.¹⁴¹ Group-level profit decline (56% in FY2024) is attributed in part by BDS campaigners to boycott effects, but coincides with non-Israel-linked market exits from Italy and Argentina, complicating a clean causal attribution.¹⁵⁵ Carrefour’s 2024 Universal Registration Document states that Electra Consumer Products “signed a contract prohibiting it from developing stores under the Carrefour banner in Palestinian territories” - a formulation critics note still permits non-Carrefour-branded settlement stores to continue operating under the same franchise relationship.¹⁹¹⁴

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Global Retail C.I. Ltd / Electra Consumer Products (franchise vehicle and majority owner); Tnuva (settlement-sourced dairy/poultry supplier); Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, Mizrahi Tefahot, Israel Discount Bank (OHCHR-listed lenders); Majid Al Futtaim (former Jordan/Gulf franchise partner, relationship ended November 2024).¹¹⁴¹²⁸

Political: Political

Mechanism of Involvement

CEO Alexandre Bompard has repeatedly stated, across 2023, 2024 and May 2025, that “there have never been and there will never be any Carrefour stores in occupied territory” - a claim directly contradicted by the documented operation of Carrefour-branded stores in Maccabim and Neve Ya’akov.² The franchise structure links Carrefour to entities on the UN OHCHR settlement business database: Electra Ltd (sibling to franchise partner Electra Consumer Products) is listed in the 2020 database for settlement construction and infrastructure, and the four Israeli banks financing the franchisee are separately OHCHR-listed.¹²¹⁴ The July 2025 UN Special Rapporteur report by Francesca Albanese (A/HRC/59/23) names Carrefour among 48 corporate actors linked to Israel’s occupation economy.¹⁶¹⁷ A store-level October 2023 soldier fundraiser in Jerusalem, and the November 2024 closure of all Jordan operations following a boycott campaign over reported soldier support and settlement ties, are both documented.²⁸⁹¹⁰ In Tunisia, security guards at a Carrefour-franchised store assaulted pro-Palestinian protesters in August 2025, an incident attributed to franchisee conduct rather than corporate policy.¹⁸

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

No public evidence identifies Carrefour issuing corporate statements supporting Israeli military operations, opposing ceasefire efforts, or taking an official corporate position on the conflict beyond the CEO’s contested denials.² No public evidence identifies HR actions against pro-Palestinian staff, corporate lobbying activity specific to Israel/Palestine policy, PAC donations, or entries in US LDA or UK lobbying registers.¹⁹ No public evidence identifies Carrefour accepting Israeli state honours, hosting Israeli government officials for non-commercial purposes, sponsoring “Brand Israel”-type campaigns, or drawing on military heritage in its branding.² No specific OECD National Contact Point complaint against Carrefour has been identified.²⁰ No former IDF, Shin Bet or Mossad personnel have been documented on Carrefour’s board, and no evidence connects the Salkind brothers (controllers of Elco Ltd) personally to settlement organisations or military-welfare funds.⁶

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Alexandre Bompard (CEO, source of contradicted denials); Electra Consumer Products / Elco Ltd (franchise partner and ultimate parent, OHCHR-linked via sibling entity); UN OHCHR settlement business database; UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese (A/HRC/59/23); Majid Al Futtaim (former Jordan/Gulf partner); UTIC Group (Tunisia franchise operator).^2161712818

BDS-1000 Score (V4)

• V_MAX: 8.50 Sum_OTHERS: 6.86
• BRS Score: 617 Tier: B (Severe)

The Economic domain (Economic, 8.50) sets V_MAX and is the dossier’s dominant driver: a sustained, expanding franchise retail presence including direct branded operations in occupied territory, settlement-sourced supply chains, and financing from OHCHR-listed banks. The Political domain (Political, 6.68) compounds this through documented UN Special Rapporteur naming and a CEO denial directly contradicted by the store-location record. By contrast, Military (0.15) and Digital (0.03) remain near-floor, reflecting the near-total absence of direct Carrefour S.A. defence-contracting or surveillance-technology evidence - the modest COGAT catering contract and store-level soldier fundraiser are the extent of the direct military nexus, with the substantial ELCO Group defence contracting held at arm’s length under sibling-entity, not parent-entity, attribution. The BDS-1000 method is evidence-only and scale-free: each domain score is the product of Impact (I, activity type), Magnitude (M, scale) and Proximity (P, directness) as documented in the four domain audits, with the overall BRS driven by the highest-scoring domain (V_MAX) adjusted by the sum of the others; all figures presented here are the final, human-vetted V4 scores and are not altered from the audit record.

Methodology Note

• All claims in this dossier trace to the four domain audits (Military, Digital, Economic, Political); no external or supplementary sourcing was introduced.
• Where audit checks found nothing, this dossier states “No public evidence identified” rather than inferring absence of a relationship from silence.
• Impact (I) reflects the type of activity documented (e.g., defence contracting vs. commercial retail); Magnitude (M) reflects its documented scale (contract value, store count, employee count); Proximity (P) reflects directness of the entity’s link to Carrefour S.A. (direct parent conduct vs. franchisee vs. group-attributed sibling entity).
• Temporal rule: divested, exited or discontinued operations (e.g., the November 2024 Jordan closure, the August–September 2024 settlement-product withdrawal) are carried with their documented caveats rather than treated as ongoing, current-state conduct.
• Entity attribution follows a no-transitive-guilt standard: ELCO Group sibling subsidiaries’ extensive defence and settlement-infrastructure contracts are labelled “Group Attribution” throughout and are not conflated with direct conduct by Carrefour S.A. or by the Carrefour-branded retail franchise itself.
• Settlement retail/store operations are dual-counted in both Economic (commercial activity, supply chain) and Political (occupation-linked operations, UN listing exposure) per the audits’ own domain scoping, consistent with the settlement-operation dual-counting convention.

End Notes