Invited on France Inter on Monday, March 30, 2026, the Minister of Culture, Catherine Pégard, admitted to having no memory of a photo taken in 2013 at the Palace of Versailles, where she appeared alongside the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a private visit.
An unsettling image. Despite the existence of a photograph immortalizing her in the Hall of Mirrors with the American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the Minister of Culture, Catherine Pégard, maintains her version of events: she remembers neither the meeting nor the pose.
A cliché that resurfaced on BFMTV and in Le Monde. In this photograph from 2013, Catherine Pégard, then president of the Palace of Versailles, is seen with Jeffrey Epstein, producer Caroline Lang, and director Woody Allen. At that time, Epstein was on a private visit under the guidance of Jean-Luc Brunel, his close French collaborator.
On France Inter on Monday, March 30, the minister no longer denies the material evidence but pleads selective amnesia. “I do not deny that this photo exists, that would be stupid, but I have no memory of this moment,” she stressed.
To justify this lapse, the minister cites the density of her schedule at the time. She emphasizes that she was receiving “almost 150 delegations per year” at the historic site. Such a large flow of visitors that she claims it would make it impossible to identify each guest, especially since she says she “did not know” Epstein at that time.
The Minister of Culture is sticking to her initial defense, which she held before her appointment in February: “If I had been present, I would remember and say so, of course.” She merely suggests today a brief appearance to explain her presence in the image: “I may have passed by for five minutes at that time.”
