Overview
- France’s National Financial Prosecutor’s Office opened a preliminary investigation on Saturday into Jack Lang and his daughter Caroline on suspicion of aggravated tax-fraud laundering linked to Jeffrey Epstein.
- The foreign ministry, which oversees the Arab World Institute and supplies half its budget, has summoned Lang to a meeting as pressure grows for him to step down as the institute’s president.
- U.S. Justice Department documents show intermittent correspondence between Epstein and Lang from 2012 to 2019, and a Reuters review found Lang’s name appears more than 600 times in the files.
- Both Lang and his daughter deny wrongdoing; Caroline Lang resigned earlier this week as head of the Independent Production Union, and Jack Lang says he did not know of Epstein’s 2008 conviction.
- Lang’s lawyer said there had been no movement of funds and that they would cooperate fully, while prosecutors confirmed the probe without providing further details.