i offer no excuses and have no sympathy for polanski- who is a child raping criminal who deserves to rot in jail for the rest of his life. but the sarkozy/ general french view of him has a basis in the history of consent laws in france. the age of consent there has been 15 for some time and statutory rape was directly defined with a specific jail time in the penal code. in the late 70′s there was a big public push to remove the statutory clause and allow for “decriminalization of ‘ consenting relationships’ between adults and minors”. of course it was mostly artists and writers who added their names to the sundry letters to editors and petitions to legalize child rape. artists and writers – always the best friends to the exploitation of women and children. anyway, in france as in most of europe there is a tendency to see these things as non criminal behaviors and to see americans as uptight religiously motivated prudes who just do not understand ‘ love’ or art. it’s twisted but support of polanski in this light makes sense.

as an aside, tammy has mentioned leaders who aren’t jewish and included sarkozy- but he’s actually part sephardic jew on his mother’s side. members of his extended family perished in the holocaust.

And if Polanski has a medical issue so severe it requires him to be released from prison, how was it OK for him to travel to Switzerland in the first place?