The French government has moved to dismiss comments a senior politician made, suggesting Swiss officials should release Roman Polanski, branding his child sex crime "a serious case".
The director was detained by authorities in Zurich, Switzerland on Saturday (26Sep09), 31 years after U.S. police issued a warrant for his arrest.
Polanski is now fighting extradition to the U.S., where he faces sentencing after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. He fled the country in 1978 after claiming the judge in the case had reneged on a plea bargain, and took up residence in France.
On Monday (28Sep09), French culture minister Frederic Mitterrand claimed Polanski should not be subjected to "a new ordeal".
A spokesperson from his office said, "(Mitterrand is) stunned. (He) strongly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already experienced so many of them."
Now French President Nicolas Sarkozy has waded into the debate - his representatives are insisting Polanski should not be given any special treatment.
In a statement issued on Wednesday (30Sep09), government spokesman Luc Chatel said the Rosemary's Baby filmmaker was "neither above nor below the law", although he claimed Sarkozy's team sympathised with the nature of Polanski's arrest.
The rep adds, "A judicial procedure is under way concerning a serious case, the rape of a minor, and the U.S. and Swiss justice systems are doing their work.
"On the other hand, there's emotion, and we can understand the emotion stirred up by this belated arrest, more than 30 years after the events, and the method of the arrest."
Polanski's victim Samantha Geimer, has previously asked for the charges to be dropped.