Veteran French politician quits Arab World Institute amid Epstein links

Jack Lang, a former French culture minister, has resigned as head of Paris’s Institut du Monde Arabe after revelations of past contacts with Jeffrey Epstein and the opening of a financial investigation by French prosecutors. He quit on Saturday night before an urgent meeting called by the French foreign ministry.

The financial prosecutor’s office has opened an inquiry into Lang and his daughter, Caroline Lang, on suspicion of 'aggravated tax fraud laundering'; both have denied wrongdoing. Lang, 86, corresponded intermittently with Epstein between 2012 and 2019, when Epstein died by suicide in jail.

He was mentioned more than 600 times in the files released by the US Department of Justice, and his daughter was repeatedly referenced. Caroline Lang resigned from France’s Union of Independent Producers after emails showed she had founded an offshore company with Epstein in 2016 to invest in young artists; she says she left that company in 2019 and denies any wrongdoing.

France, Paris