Paris (AFP)

The Minister of Culture Franck Riester said Thursday that a work, "as great as it is, does not apologize for any mistakes of its author", while the director Roman Polanski is targeted by a new charge of rape, from a French photographer.

"Talent is not a mitigating circumstance, genius, not a guarantee of impunity," said Franck Riester - never to name the Franco-Polish director - while warning against the "tribunal of opinion" , in a speech held Thursday in Paris at the Assises of parity and diversity in the cinema.

He insisted on the peculiarities of the professions of the 7th art "where the body and the intimate are very often at stake, where young talents have desires of success, and people profit from it.Where must not be confused aura and influence ", while ensuring its concern to protect" the freedom to create ".

The minister had already praised the courage of the actress Adèle Haenel, who accused the director Christophe Ruggia of "touching" and "harassment" when she was a teenager, reviving the #MeToo movement in France.

He once again marked Thursday his support for "all those who dare to break the silence." "Your word is necessary" and is "not vain".

"One voice, sometimes, can make all the difference," said Riester, whose ministry was touched by "the unspeakable actions of one of his former senior officials" who humiliated women by urging them to urinate. before him and photographing them. The man is prosecuted in particular for sexual assault.

This Ministry case "is indicative of the omerta that has long prevailed in the area of ​​sexual and gender-based violence," said Riester.

A few days before the release of the film "J'accuse", in cinemas since Wednesday, the photographer Valentine Monnier, revealed to the Parisian to have been "beaten" and raped by Roman Polanski in 1975 at the age of eighteen , in Swiss. 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.

He has been on trial in the United States since 1977 for illegal sex with a minor. This led the Academy of Oscars to end up excluding it.

© 2019 AFP