The French government has referred the matter to prosecutors and ordered an internal review after newly released US investigation files revealed past email exchanges between the diplomat and the disgraced financier.
File photograph of Jeffrey Epstein, the US financier whose case continues to have global legal and diplomatic repercussions. (AP)
France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot has sought a formal investigation into a senior diplomat accused of corresponding with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, after separate allegations surfaced linking the official to an earlier inquiry at the United Nations over child abuse websites.
The diplomat, Fabrice Aidan, has denied all accusations.
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The development follows the recent release of additional Epstein investigation files by the US Department of Justice.
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Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said he was shocked by the revelations. “When I learnt about it, I was appalled,” he told RTL.
Barrot, in a post on X late Tuesday, said he was talking about the allegations concerning Aidan to the public prosecutor and had ordered an internal probe into the “foreign affairs secretary on leave for personal reasons and holding positions in the private sector.”
Epstein died by suicide in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking underage girls.
Being mentioned in the newly released files does not in itself suggest criminal conduct.
A review of the documents by news agency AFP indicated that Aidan exchanged emails with Epstein beginning in 2010. At the time, according to French media reports, Aidan was working at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
Some of the correspondence appears to show Aidan forwarding UN documents and reports to Epstein.
One email from 2016 shows Epstein sending Aidan a link to a blog post about the dismissal of a “young French diplomat” from the United Nations. The dismissal followed an FBI inquiry in 2013 that allegedly found the diplomat had accessed child sex abuse websites.
French outlets 20minutes and Mediapart reported on Tuesday, citing multiple sources, that the diplomat referred to in that blog post was Aidan.
His lawyer, Jade Dousselin, rejected the claims outright. She said the allegations were “utterly false.”
“There was never any consultation of child pornography sites. The FBI has already investigated without any charges ever being brought, and the investigations conducted in France reached the same conclusion,” she said.
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