French cement giant Lafarge SA will pay a $778 million fine after pleading guilty to providing material support to Islamic State and other militant groups during the Syrian civil war, the US Justice Department said Tuesday. Lafarge acknowledged it paid millions of euros to middlemen to keep its Syrian cement factory running in 2013 and 2014, long after other firms had pulled out of the country – in what the Justice Department branded an “unthinkable choice.” Earlier this year, a French court ruled that the company was aware that much of the money had gone to finance Islamic State (IS) operatio…