French police raid Arab World Institute in Paris as Epstein fallout widens

By Gianluca Lo Nostro

PARIS, Feb 16 (Reuters) – French police searched the Arab World Institute in Paris on Monday as part of an investigation into its former president, former culture minister Jack Lang, and his links to convicted U.S. sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, prosecutors said.

The French National Financial Prosecutor (PNF) said in a statement that the Arab World Institute was among the many places raided.

Prosecutors this month opened a preliminary investigation into Lang and his daughter Caroline on suspicion of tax evasion after documents about Epstein were published in the United States.

Lang, who was culture minister under the last Socialist president François Mitterrand, resigned this month from the Arab World Institute, which he had chaired since 2013.

She said she was unaware of Epstein’s crimes despite corresponding with him between 2012 and 2019, 11 years after the financier was convicted of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl. Epstein died by suicide in prison in 2019.

The Institute, which is overseen by France’s foreign ministry, said it could not immediately comment on police action.

Both Jack and Caroline Lang have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and receiving financial assistance from Epstein. Their lawyer, Laurent Merlet, told French broadcaster BFMTV this month that there was “no movement of funds”.

The fallout from the release of millions of new documents related to Epstein has spread across Europe. On Saturday, Paris prosecutors set up a special team in coordination with the financial prosecutor and the national police to examine the files.

The office said it was analyzing several potential cases stemming from the Epstein files.

One of them involves French diplomat Fabrice Aidan, who allegedly passed United Nations documents to Epstein.

Aidan, who worked at the UN from July 2006 to April 2013, denied the accusations through his lawyer.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Gianluca Lo Nostro; Editing by Richard Lough and Kevin Liffey)