What Have We Learned About the Epstein Scandal?
Why couldn't Epstein charm the French elite the way he did the American elite?
From the New York Times news section:
Epstein in Paris: How a Sex Offender Hustled for Access to France’s Elite
Jeffrey Epstein spent his last days of freedom in Paris, meeting with influential figures. It was a playbook he used everywhere he lived to stamp a veneer of respectability on a life of sordid criminality.
By Mark Landler
Reporting from Paris
April 6, 2026
… It was a Paris sojourn like countless others for Mr. Epstein, whose every-other-month visits since the early 2000s had been a mix of restless networking, real estate shopping and, according to testimony gathered by French prosecutors, systematic sex trafficking.
It was a playbook used by Mr. Epstein in every place he lived: From Manhattan to Palm Beach, Fla., he sought out well-connected fixers to help him befriend influential people, and then cultivated those relationships in a way that stamped a veneer of respectability on a life of sordid criminal activity.
… The three million-plus pages of Epstein-related documents released in January by the Justice Department provide, for the first time, an insider’s view of Mr. Epstein in Paris — a socially ambitious expatriate, eager to mingle in French high society, if not always successfully. His apartment on Avenue Foch, a tree-lined boulevard that is the Park Avenue of Paris, was at once an opulent salon and an oversize pied-à-terre. …
Mr. Epstein, however, struggled to fully ingratiate himself with France’s political elite. His most lasting contact was with Jack Lang, who served as culture minister during the 1980s under President François Mitterrand.
In the later 20th Century, you heard about the center-left Lang all the time if you read the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. He was probably one of the half-dozen best known French politicians among Americans who followed the news.
A charismatic figure who created popular cultural events, Mr. Lang, 86, nevertheless had long lost the political influence he wielded during the heyday of his career.
Still, Mr. Epstein savored the association, dining with Mr. Lang at chic restaurants and joining him at art exhibits and film premieres, according to emails.
Epstein’s chief target to become pals with in France was apparently the center-right Nicolas Sarkozy, who was President of France from 2007 to 2012. But Epstein never seems to have gotten a meeting with Sarkozy.
In the Comments, NYT reporter Mark Landler adds:
Mark Landler
London Bureau Chief ·
The contours of the Jeffrey Epstein story are well known by now. But his time in Paris struck me as worth exploring because I found there was a collision between his ambitions and the reserve of the French political elite. In combing through his emails, I found a story of a wealthy expatriate who never quite got the access to top-level French VIP’s that he was able to establish in the U.S. …
I also wonder if his lack of French, or even, to judge from his emails, lack of effort at trying to learn it, would have made some locals less interested.
You have to admire French snootiness and hauteur:
You want me, the former President of the Republic, to meet who? An American sex offender? Granted, we French are broad-minded about one’s private peccadilloes when it comes to l’amour, but what else does this Epstein do besides get himself caught? You say he knows important people, like Larry Summers? Well, I know Larry. After all, as I may have mentioned, I was the President of France. Noam Chomsky? The leftist linguist? Can’t say I want to know him.
So, where do we stand a couple of months after the main data dump of the Epstein Files?
Paywall here.
