France drops support for Polanski
.The French government has dropped its public support for Roman Polanski, saying the Oscar-winning director held in Switzerland over a three-decade-old child sex case is not “above the law.”
“Roman Polanski is neither above nor beneath the law,” government spokesperson Luc Chatel said.
“We have a judicial procedure under way for a serious affair – the rape of a minor – on which the American and Swiss legal systems are doing their job,” he said, adding: “One can understand the emotion that this belated arrest, more than 30 years after the incident, and the method of the arrest have caused.
He was arrested at the weekend as he arrived in Zurich to collect a film festival award. .
Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand called the arrest of the Franco-Polish filmmaker, who lives in Paris, “absolutely horrifying” and said it showed “a side of America which is frightening.
The French government had earlier this week expressed outrage over the arrest, with Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner calling on US authorities to allow Polanski to be freed.”
Mr Chatel, asked by reporters to comment on the Culture Minister’s reaction, said: “Frederic Mitterrand was speaking from the heart.
Polanski can launch several appeals, so a final extradition decision could take weeks or months.”
Switzerland says Polanski is being held under an international alert issued by the United States in 2005.
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