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 A group of about 40 activists blocked the screening of the
French premiere of Polanski's film "J'accuse" at a theater in
Rue Champollion, although the film was shown at some other
theaters in Paris.
"The cancellation of this screening is not a victory; victory
will be when the impunity for rapists ends," Chloe Madesta, one
of the activists, told France Info Radio.
Polanski is launching his new film in France just days after
French actress Valentine Monnier - in an open letter to daily Le
Parisien - accused Polanski, now 86, of having raped her in
1975, when she was 18 years old, during a ski holiday in Gstaad,
Switzerland.
Polanski, through his lawyer Herve Temime, has denied the
accusation.
Monnier is one of several women who have publicly accused
Polanski of sexually assaulting them. Polanski has repeatedly
denied all accusations against him.
In October 2017, protesters disrupted the opening of a
retrospective of Polanski's work in Paris following new rape
accusations against him.
Polanski fled the United States after pleading guilty in 1977 to
having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles.
Accusations against Polanski predate the Hollywood film mogul
Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal in 2017, but
Polanski's history came under renewed scrutiny as the #MeToo
movement against sexual abuse and harassment grew in the wake of
the Weinstein case.
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Last year, Polanski was expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences.
In a production note for his new film - about Alfred Dreyfus, a
Jewish French army officer who in 1894 was convicted of treason -
Polanski has compared his problems with the law and the persecution
he says he has suffered with the struggles of Dreyfus.
Dreyfus's conviction was criticized as being motivated by
anti-Semitism and the case deeply split France. He was eventually
exonerated.
"It is absolutely indecent to make a parallel between Dreyfus' story
of denial of justice and Polanski's story. Polanski has spent his
life fleeing from justice," activist Madesta said.
"We call on all theaters not to show this film and on film lovers
not to go see it," she added.
In August, Polanski stayed away from the premiere of the film -
called "An Officer and a Spy" in English - at the Venice Film
Festival.
(Reporting by Geert De Clercq and Henri-Pierre Andre; Editing by
Howard Goller)
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