On BFMTV, Caroline Lang, daughter of Jack Lang, described Jeffrey Epstein as a 'friend' but not an intimate, following revelations in the Epstein dossier where she and her father are mentioned 673 times. She has resigned from several positions in the film industry due to financial ties with the American financier, while Jack Lang faces calls to resign from the presidency of the Institut du monde arabe.
The Epstein affair continues to stir controversy in France after the U.S. Department of Justice released a new section of the dossier on Friday, implicating Jack Lang and his daughter Caroline. The former Culture Minister's name appears 673 times in these three million documents, with no charges against him or his daughter. At 86 years old, Jack Lang, president of the Institut du monde arabe (IMA) for 13 years, refuses to resign despite mounting pressure. Figures such as Olivier Faure, Ségolène Royal, Renaud Muselier, and Jean-Christophe Cambadélis call for his departure, arguing that his position harms the institution. The executive, through Matignon and the Élysée, urges him to 'think of the institution,' and he will soon be summoned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Caroline Lang, a film producer little known to the public, broke her silence on BFMTV Thursday. She admitted meeting Epstein about 15 times, as a 'friend' and not an 'intimate.' Horrified by the financier's 'monstrous crimes' after his death in 2019, she explained: 'Sexual predators have double personalities, hide their game well, and have double faces.' She defended her association by noting Epstein's ties to figures like Donald Trump and Bill Clinton: 'We knew he frequented everyone; he was a friend of Mr. Trump and Mr. Clinton... Why wouldn't we have frequented him? How could we have imagined such horrors?' She justified a 2014 email promising a meeting with Dominique Strauss-Kahn by Epstein's economic interest in the Middle East.
Following revelations about an offshore company founded in 2016 with Epstein, Caroline Lang resigned Monday from the head of the Syndicat des producteurs indépendants (SPI), Wednesday from the board of the Séries Mania festival, and was placed on leave from the presidency of the Pictanovo fund. Jack Lang, for his part, defended himself on France 2: 'I am white as snow.' He relies on support from Arab countries to keep his post, but the controversy persists.