The judicial authorities in Paris charged a Frenchman of Syrian origin with complicity in crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The authorities did not reveal any details related to the case, but a source familiar with the file confirmed to AFP that the accused was born in 1962 and resides abroad, and he was arrested in southern France.
In turn, a judicial source explained to the French that at the end of the period of the accused's police custody, he was charged with "conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity, complicity in crimes against humanity and complicity in war crimes", and he was placed in pretrial detention.
The war in Syria has killed nearly half a million people and caused the largest displacement since World War Two.
Syria denies using chemical weapons, and stresses that it handed over its stockpiles of weapons under an agreement concluded in 2013 with the United States and Russia, following a sarin gas attack that killed 1,400 people in Eastern Ghouta to Damascus.
But Damascus was stripped of its voting rights to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in April after an investigation held it responsible for other poison gas attacks.
Its rights will remain suspended until it declares all of its chemical weapons and manufacturing facilities.