Govt drops support for Roman Polanski
Luc Chatel says Franco-Polish film director 'is not above the law' and Swiss judiciary are 'doing their job'
The French government has decided to drop its public support for Roman Polanski, the Oscar-winning director held in Switzerland over a child sex case dating back more than 30 years.
The 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.
But Education Minister and government spokesman Luc Chatel said it was agreed that Polanski was not "above the law."
"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.
But he added: "One can understand the emotion that this belated arrest, more than 30 years after the incident, and the method of the arrest, have caused."
Polanski fled the United States in 1978 before sentencing, having pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl;
He was arrested on Saturday as he arrived in Zurich to collect a film festival award.
Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand called the arrest of the Franco-Polish film-maker, who lives in Paris, "absolutely horrifying."
Chatel, asked by reporters to comment on the culture minister's reaction, said: "Frederic Mitterrand was speaking from the heart."
