France’s foreign minister has ordered an investigation into a senior diplomat after revelations of his correspondence with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and past allegations of accessing child abuse websites while serving at the United Nations.
Fabrice Aidan, a former French foreign affairs employee, is mentioned in more than 200 files released by the US Department of Justice last month as part of its ongoing Epstein probe. His current employer, energy provider Engie, told French press agency AFP that Aidan "was suspended from his duties, due to information brought to the company’s attention and reported in certain media outlets, relating to a period prior to his joining the group."
The documents reportedly include emails exchanged between Aidan and Epstein from 2010 to 2016, some involving the transfer of United Nations briefings and reports.
Former French culture minister Lang summoned to explain Epstein ties
Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said he had referred the allegations to prosecutors and ordered an internal inquiry, calling the revelations “staggering” and “extremely serious”.
A search of the Epstein files, published by the US Department of Justice, reveals that Aidan's name appears 211 times in different documents and emails, many of them in connection to Terje Rod-Larsen, a former Norwegian and president of the International Peace Institute (IPI), who also features in the Epstein files.
As a result, Rod-Larson is currently also under investigation on suspicion of complicity in gross corruption, together with his wife, Mona Juul, who was Norway’s ambassador to the United Nations in 2022. Both Norwegians were part of a small group of diplomats working on the 1993-1995 Oslo accords. According to Norwegian medai, Epstein left $10 million in his will to the children of Juul and Rod-Larsen.
President Emmanuel Macron is said to be “appalled” by the findings.
Aidan is alleged to have sent UN Security Council documents and meeting notes — including a readout of a call between former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Turkey’s foreign minister — to Epstein while posted at the UN headquarters in New York. In one exchange, he reportedly requested the access codes to Epstein’s Paris apartment.
Former French minister Lang resigns from Arab World Institute over Epstein ties
Gerard Araud, France’s UN ambassador at the time, told French press agency AFP the diplomat had been recalled to Paris in 2013 after the FBI informed UN security services that Aidan had accessed child pornography websites.
Aidan later worked for UNESCO and French energy group Engie, which said it has terminated his employment “in light of information reported in the media”.
The latest disclosures come amid widening fallout from the US release of Epstein-related material, which has already prompted former French minister Jack Lang to resign from the Arab World Institute.
(With newswires)
