Macron in the hot seat as US Yazidis sue cement giant Lafarge for aiding ISIS
France's support for terrorism becomes traditional

ANALYTICS  19 December 2023 - 12:53

As we have previously reported on our website, hundreds of Yazidis with US citizenship have filed a lawsuit against French cement manufacturer Lafarge, accusing the company of being a financier of ISIS.

The lawsuit states that the company has "aided and abetted the acts of international terrorism committed by ISIS and has colluded with ISIS and its proxies, for which it must pay compensation to the survivors". This refers to the well-known fact that between 2011 and 2014, Lafarge paid bribes to terrorist groups in exchange for ensuring the operation of the factory in the north of Syria, which is torn by civil war.

It is worth noting that this is not the first lawsuit against the cement giant. Back in October 2022, Lafarge was found guilty by the US justice system of payments to ISIS and Jebhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda's branch in Syria and Lebanon). To keep its cement factory in northern Syria running, the company paid them a total of around $6 million in "monthly donations". As a result, it was fined $777.78 million. The French company then wisely decided to cooperate with the investigation (no stranger to wisdom, it had previously used the same tactic with terrorists). Following the indictment, Lafarge, as well as Holcim, the Swiss company that bought it in 2015, conducted their own investigation.

In turn, the US Department of Justice notes that the investigation did not identify any company employees who shared the ideology or methods of terrorist groups. It notes that 'the violations occurred during a period of mass violence and intense pressure from terrorist groups, and company officials sought to keep employees and the company safe during Syria's civil war'. All in all, it was more or less bloodless.

There is more to it than that. It might seem from all this that the firm was working exclusively with ISIS and al-Qaida. In fact, however, Lafarge has paid taxes or tribute to all those who, at various times, have controlled the territory in which the plant is located. In the beginning, of course, it was the government of Bashar al-Assad. However, when control of northern Syria fell into the hands of the PKK and other associated Kurdish terrorist groups, French cement producers started cooperating with these groups. Eventually, the company found a common language with ISIS as well when the territory fell to them.

Whatever the case, Lafarge has been penalised. The same cannot be said of the politicians who were well aware of these operations and who continued to tolerate the firm's collaboration with terrorists, even becoming their accomplices. Let us mention some names: François Hollande, the former head of state, Sapin, the former finance secretary, Laurent Fabius, the former foreign secretary. This is not an exhaustive list. There is another person directly involved: Emmanuel Macron, then Minister for the Economy and now President of France.

Much of the TRT World channel film "The Factory: A Covert French Operation", released in 2021, is devoted to exposing the French government's involvement in indirect contacts with ISIS and the PKK. However, contrary to expectations, the documentary did not become a major sensation. The first series on the YouTube channel had 23,000 viewers, the second, far higher, 93,000, but this is still far from the bombshell effect. The reason is probably that the film's authors, a Turkish company and the same French, preferred to dismiss it as a committed project. So much so that they voted for Macron for a second term in 2022.

One could put this down to the cavalier attitude of the white French towards everything that happens in developing countries, and even in the Islamic world. But the Turkish film reveals another unpalatable truth: it was the French policy of flirting with terrorist groups that ultimately led to the bloodiest terrorist attack in the country's history - a series of attacks on the French capital on November 25, 2015.

However, the legal proceedings against Lafarge seem to be gaining momentum. The Yazidis have thrown a new spark into a smouldering fire. How far the investigation will go, and whether the French will learn that Macron is an incompetent and cynical conformist, is an open question. Hopefully, the case will reach its logical conclusion, investigators will raise the question of French official complicity, and Macron will have to answer, if not in the dock, at least as a witness. Undoubtedly, even that will be a blow to his already battered reputation.

P.S. If Paris' support for terrorism in Syria is purely pragmatic since the French did not want to lose money while receiving secret information, then its support for the Armenian occupation, and especially its ardent support for separatist ideas and hostility towards Azerbaijan during and after the 44-day war, has an existential dimension. This situation is irreversible. It remains to play with the French as they like to play: pragmatic and cynical.

Caliber.Az