While intellectuals and elites demand freedom for artistic genius
Roman Polanski, France mourns the rape and murder of a jogger by a repeat sex offender.
French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, French culture minister Frédéric Mitterand, French intellectual extraordinaire Bernard Henri Levy and a bevy of top French artists have called for Roman Polanski’s release following his arrest by Swiss authorities on a thirty year old rape charge. Polanki had pleaded guilty to drugging and having sex with a 13 year old but then jumped bail and fled the USA before sentencing. (see Charles Bremner for an interesting analysis).
Kouchner, a man I usually admire, expressed the French elite attitude perfectly:
"This affair is frankly a bit sinister. Here is a man of such talent, recognized worldwide, recognized especially in the country where he was arrested. This is not nice at all.”
Law, in other words, does not apply to genius.
At the same time as the French elite class articulated its thoughts on criminal justice, a 42 year-old woman out for a jog was raped and murdered by a man who had been previously condemnedto eleven years in prison for rape in 2002 but who was freed on probation in 2007.
This is not the first such case, nor, given lax sentencing and overcrowded prisons, will it be the last.
France has been, and remains, entirely at a loss how to deal with repeat sexual offenders. Anger at judicial fecklessness is palpable and building among the non-genius, non-elite classes.
It’s like a replay of the USA in the 1970s when headlines were full of repeat rapists and murderers. Charles Bronson “Death Wish” revenge fantasies and Clint Eastwood “Dirty Harry” vigilante films captured the fury of the public who felt unprotected and abandoned by the official system. Harsh, mandatory sentencing was the result in the USA.
Is France about to head down the same road, with a thirty year lag…?
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I am hard pressed to comprehend the reasoning of the elite who have sympathy for Polanski. The rape of a child is among the most heinous of crimes and this was done deliberately and with premeditation.
Posted by: Jack Kessler | 03 October 2009 at 12:41