Jack Lang, a former French culture minister, has resigned as president of the Arab World Institute, the French Foreign Affairs Ministry said on Saturday, after revelations of his past contacts with Jeffrey Epstein and the launch of a financial investigation.

Earlier this Saturday, the French Financial Prosecutor’s Office had opened an investigation into Jack Lang and his daughter Caroline on suspicion of ‘aggravated tax fraud laundering.’

Calls for Lang to step down intensified since files released on January 30 by the US Department of Justice showed Epstein and Lang corresponding intermittently between 2012 and 2019, when the financier died by suicide in jail.

French media, including Le Monde, Le Figaro and Mediapart, said the preliminary investigation had been opened after the US documents revealed years of correspondence and financial links between Lang and Epstein.

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