Paris (AFP)

His peers have taken the plunge in France: confronted with the polemic around Roman Polanski, which embarrasses the cinema hexagonal, a major organization of filmmakers has proposed new rules for its members convicted or prosecuted for sexual violence, which will lead to suspend the director.

"Forty years have passed between the first case concerning Roman Polanski and today, I think the world has changed a lot in forty years.The crimes are the same but the way they are perceived has changed immensely", said Monday night the president of the Civil Society of Authors, Directors and Producers (ARP), Pierre Jolivet, after a meeting of the board of directors of this association, which brings together nearly 200 filmmakers.

"We can put our head in the hole and tell ourselves the world has not changed, it has changed, we take it into account and it is the result of this decision," he added.

The board of directors of the PRA voted on Monday evening "the establishment of new procedures of suspension for any member put under examination by the justice, and of exclusion for any sentenced member, in particular for offenses of a sexual nature" Pierre Jolivet said while reading a short statement.

"This suspension would concern Roman Polanski, whose judicial information is still open in the United States and for which he has been indicted," he continued, while the director, who has fled the United States in 1978, is facing prosecution in this country for illegal sex with a minor in 1977.

- an extraordinary meeting -

This change of status "will be proposed to members and finally voted at the next general meeting", explained Pierre Jolivet.

The general assembly of the association "will take place in the spring", but an extraordinary meeting will have to be "convened to be able to change the statutes", he added.

The date of this "is not stopped" at this stage, told AFP a press officer of the organization.

In a testimony published by the daily Le Parisien, the photographer Valentine Monnier accused Roman Polanski of having beaten and raped her in 1975 in Switzerland when she was eighteen, reviving the anger of feminists towards the director .

This accusation of rape, which the 86-year-old French-Polish director contests, came a few days before last Wednesday's release in France of Polanski's latest film "J'accuse" on the Dreyfus affair.

It adds to those made by other women in recent years, for prescribed facts.

- at the head of the box office -

The French film community is regularly suspected of protecting Roman Polanski, while in the United States, the Academy of Oscars has decided to exclude it.

This decision of the ARP comes as the 7th French Art has also been shaken in recent weeks by the accusations of "touching" and "sexual harassment" of the actress Adele Haenel against the director Christophe Ruggia, concerning facts that occurred when she was between 12 and 15 years old.

Following its speech, the Society of Film Directors (SRF), another important organization of filmmakers, announced on November 4 to have launched a "procedure of cancellation" against Christophe Ruggia.

The French Minister of Culture, Franck Riester, announced last week measures to fight against sexual harassment in French cinema, so that the speeches "are not in vain".

Without ever naming Polanski, he felt that "genius (is) not a guarantee of impunity".

"J'accuse" had an eventful release in France, with sessions canceled in Paris and Rennes following blockades by feminists.

This however did not prevent the film from arriving at the head of the French box office over five days, at the end of the weekend. He made the seventh best start of the year for a French film, with 386,720 entries in 545 theaters.

© 2019 AFP