[ Epstein ] Paris is grandstanding for the cheap seats (part one)
The Aidan-Epstein affair is more than a question of corruption of public officials. It's a saga of elite protection, institutional blindness, and France's talent for sweeping filth under the rug.
Charles Pasqua1 captured the French political art of survival bluntly:
“When you’re screwed by a scandal, you create a scandal within the scandal — and if necessary, another scandal inside that one, until nobody understands a damn thing anymore.”
The judicial equivalent for shielding those in power is saucissonnage — slicing the affair into thin, digestible segments so the full stench never hits the public nose at once.
The “Fabrice Aidan-Epstein” case offers a textbook specimen.
The Paris Prosecutor’s Office received a criminal referal from Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot in February 2026. Instead of handling the explosive whole, it promptly divested itself in favor of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF).
As Pascal Prache, the head of the PNF made clear in his communiqué, this probe targets only the narrow “Aidan volet”: suspicions of passive corruption of foreign public officials and complicity thereof.
The raid at Edmond de Rothschild (with Ariane de Rothschild present) and other sites deliver the required spectacle of action. Indeed, the deeds of Mr. Aidan exhibit so far no proven link with the Epstein case narrowly understood — that is, the three-decade sexual trafficking of minors and women that Jeffrey Epstein ran with the apparent protection of very powerful insitutions and people.
Who still hasn’t grasped that the young girls fed to and by Epstein — however unspeakable the acts — were not the core of the matter?
The machine ran on something far more valuable than cheap disposable flesh: access, intelligence, influence, favors, money, insider deals etc. within a sizeable chunk of the global elite.
We contacted the PNF with the following two precise questions:
Does the PNF’s preliminary probe target only facts that occurred while Mr. Fabrice Aidan was employed by Edmond de Rothschild bank?
Are there other ongoing investigations that would fall under different jurisdictions?
Ms. Bérénice Dinh, vice-prosecutor, secretary general and communications officer of the PNF, replied as follows:
“We do not wish to communicate further on this investigation. For reference, we previously issued a press release concerning the Epstein case on the opening of an investigation for aggravated tax fraud laundering involving Caroline and Jack Lang.”
Secrecy of the investigation, you’ll say. But our conversations with other sources inside the judicial and police apparatus reveal both a very real nervousness at the very top and a profound disconnect with the “field” over the charges selected and the chosen path to prosecute them.
And for good reason. As you’re about to see, this case is anything but business as usual - that is, for the regular Joe.
