Should we, as some still defend it, separate man from artist? Not for the Minister of Culture. "A work, however great it may be, does not excuse the possible mistakes of its author," said this Thursday Franck Riester, while the director Roman Polanski is targeted by a new charge of rape, which embarrasses the French cinema .
"Talent is not a mitigating circumstance, genius, not a guarantee of impunity," said Franck Riester - without ever naming the Franco-Polish director - while warning against the "court of opinion" , on the occasion of the Assises of parity and diversity in cinema Thursday, November 14 in Paris.
He insisted on the peculiarities of the seventh art professions "where the body and the intimate are very often at stake, where young talents have desires for success, and people benefit from them.Where must not be confused aura and hold ", while ensuring its concern to protect" the freedom to create ".
A new film and a revived debate
The release Wednesday, November 13 in rooms of "J'accuse", the reconstruction of the case Dreyfus by Polanski, was hectic, with the cancellation of a preview Tuesday due to a blockage of feminists and a promotion disturbed (interviews canceled or not broadcast). A hashtag #BoycottPolanski has also appeared on social networks.
A few days before the release of the film "J'accuse", the photographer Valentine Monnier had revealed to the Parisian being "beaten up" and raped by Roman Polanski in 1975 at the age of eighteen, in Switzerland. A charge contested "with the greatest firmness" by the filmmaker's lawyer. This new case comes as Roman Polanski, multi-award winning artist (Oscar, Cannes Palme d'Or, Grand Prix at the Venice Film Festival ...) has been accused of sexual assault by other women in recent years, for prescribed facts.
In this context, several members of the government, including its spokesperson Sibeth Ndiaye and Marlene Schiappa, in charge of Equality between women and men, said they would personally refuse to go see the film, Grand Prix at the Mostra from Venice, without calling for boycotting.
Frédéric Mitterrand defends Polanski
The former Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand has meanwhile made the opposite of his successor and defended the director. Bernard Poirette's morning guest on Sunday on Europe 1 reacted to Polanski's new accusation: "I do not believe it," he answers simply. Several witnesses have confirmed the version of Valentine Monnier in Paris . "There are two testimonies, but we do not know who it is, we do not know their name," nevertheless defends the nephew of François Mitterrand.
In 2009, already, Frédéric Mitterrand had taken the defense of Roman Polanski on our antenna. He then judged "absolutely appalling" the arrest of the filmmaker in Switzerland, concerning his conviction in the United States for unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. "She did not really make any sense anymore since he had been forgiven by the victim ", he reaffirms on Europe 1. An argument that the justice tastes little: because of this case, Roman Polanski remains free to circulate in three countries, France, Poland and Switzerland .