A hundred demonstrators demonstrated Friday evening near the Salle Pleyel, before the Cesar ceremony, to protest against the twelve nominations of Roman Polanski's film, "J'accuse". The filmmaker and the entire film crew decided not to attend the ceremony.

More than a hundred demonstrators gathered Friday Place des Ternes in Paris, not far from the Salle Pleyel where the Cesar ceremony is to take place, to denounce Roman Polanski and the appointments of J'accuse . "We want to challenge the cinema community which can support Adèle Haenel, who denounces the facts of sexual assault and, at the same time, with incredible hypocrisy, supports Roman Polanski," explained Céline Piques, spokesperson for Dare the feminism to an AFP journalist. The demonstrators launched slogans hostile to the scenario writer like "Polanski rapist, guilty cinema, public accomplice".

Some of them tried later to step onto the red carpet, a sequence filmed by BFMTV cameras. Roman Polanski and the team for his film J'accuse , including actor Jean Dujardin who plays the main role, decided not to attend the César ceremony while his feature film on the Dreyfus Affair 12 appointments.

César: against Roman Polanski, demonstrators try to return to the red carpet pic.twitter.com/W5iMbRaeoc

- BFMTV (@BFMTV) February 28, 2020

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"It is not a public lynching"

At the microphone of Europe 1, Morgane, who carries a sign "Adèle at the Pantheon, Polanski in prison", explains her participation in this rally. "I'm here tonight because the number twelve is twelve appointments, twelve humiliations, twelve charges," she said. According to the protester, "this is not a public lynching. Tonight, a whole team is absent from the room. The most embarrassed are leaving. We are here, we are not boycotting , there is no empty chair policy. "

In front of the Pleyel room where the Ceremony will open # Cesar2020pic.twitter.com / NKqvDPRzxT

- Marine Turchi (@marineturchi) February 28, 2020

Friday morning, the Minister of Culture Franck Riester estimated that a César of the best director for Roman Polanski would be "a bad symbol compared to the necessary awareness that we must all have in the fight against sexual and gender-based violence" . Roman Polanski is the subject of several rape charges and is still being prosecuted by the American justice system for illegal sexual relations with a minor in 1977.