French cement giant found guilty of financing jihad groups, including the Islamic State

This is not the first time the French company Lefarge was found to be financing jihadists. Jihad Watch reported in 2022 that the company was embroiled in almost the exact same scandal. Lefarge pled guilty to paying out millions to the Islamic State group “to keep a plant operational in Syria — at a time when the militant group was engaged in torturing kidnapped Westerners — and agreed to pay roughly $778 million in penalties.”

At the time, the U.S. Justice Department accused Lefarge of “turning a blind eye to the conduct of the Islamic State, negotiating a revenue-sharing agreement with the militant group as it was acquiring new territory and as Syria was mired in a brutal civil war.”

After Lefarge’s guilty plea “in federal court in Brooklyn,” it agreed “to criminal fines of $90.78 million and a forfeiture of $687 million.”

Lefarge was well known to French political and law enforcement authorities, and even to the U.S. Justice Department, so how could it have found an opportunity to offend again? Read more about the case HERE to find out how deep Lefarge’s connection to jihad terror went.

The case is chilling. Although the current presiding judge levied a heavy fine and prison sentences for Lafarge’s financing of jihad groups in Syria, she concluded that “these payments took the form of a genuine commercial partnership with [ISIL].” It was to save the business as well as anyone associated with it who had no knowledge of its dealings.

Money talks, and that is how the jihad continues to grow and infiltrate. Lefarge didn’t learn in 2022, and it will likely continue its dealings under suspect protections.

Partnering with jihadists isn’t a new or unusual phenomenon. No one pretends, for instance, that Muslim Brotherhood-supporting Qatar hasn’t been highly influential in America’s academic institutions. The Muslim Brotherhood encourages jihad by the sword as a duty for all Muslims, and as a higher calling. To lock arms with it in business with the Muslim Brotherhood is reprehensible and harmful to Western interests. 

While Lafarge stands out as being particularly reprehensible given its willful cooperation with the Islamic State, there are plenty of other Western institutions who also aid the jihad. Some do it for votes, and some for institutional cash flow.

“French court rules cement giant Lafarge guilty of funding Syria ‘terrorism,’” Al Jazeera, April 13, 2026:

A French court has found cement group Lafarge guilty of financing “terrorism” through its Syrian subsidiary, fining the company and jailing its former CEO.

The Paris court ruled on Monday that Lafarge had paid protection money directly to ISIL (ISIS) and other armed groups and breached European sanctions to operate in northern Syria during the country’s civil war in 2013-2014. The case is just the latest of several concerning the company’s conduct during the conflict.

The court ordered Lafarge to pay a fine of 1.12 million euros ($1.32m), and for 30 million euros ($35.1m) worth of its assets to be confiscated. An additional fine was levied for having disregarded international sanctions. The ruling can be appealed.

Eight former Lafarge employees were found guilty of financing “terrorist” organisations, including former CEO Bruno Lafont, who was ⁠sentenced to six years in jail. His lawyer has said that he plans to appeal.

The company’s former deputy managing director, Christian Herrault, was sentenced to five years in jail. Other former employees were handed fines and sentences ranging from one to seven years.

The presiding judge, Isabelle Prevost-Desprez, said the payments made by Lafarge helped to strengthen groups that carried out deadly attacks in Syria and beyond….