Jean Genet, the poet, novelist and playwright considered one of France's greatest 20th-century literary talents, was given up for adoption by his mother, a young prostitute, when he was one. Brilliant at school, he spent his childhood thieving and running away from home. Half his adolescence was spent in a young offenders' institution. He was dishonourably discharged from the army on a charge of indecency, roamed Europe as a vagrant, thief and homosexual prostitute, then spent a lengthy period in and out of jail in Paris following a dozen or so arrests for larceny, the use of false papers, vagabondage and lewd behaviour. By the time it was eventually published, his work, a subversive celebration of homosexuality, dishonesty and theft, was banned in America. Long before that, however, theAir Max Plus poet, novelist, dramatist and designer Jean Cocteau had stood up at one of Genet's many trials and unhesitatingly declared the as yet barely published author – threatened by that stage with a life sentence as a repeat offender – as "the greatest writer of the modern era". Genet stole, Cocteau added, "to nourish his soul and his body". Six years later, in the wake of a petition launched by Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso, the French president, Vincent Auriol, granted Genet – by now the author of five novels, three plays and numerous poems – a full and irrevocable pardon; he would never again be sent to prison. The parallels with an Oscar-winning film-maker regarded as one of the most gifted cineastes of his generation, who was born in Paris of Polish refugee parents but spent his childhood in theNike jordan 9 Krakow ghetto, lost his mother in Auschwitz and his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, to a famously brutal murder, and was later accused of child molestation, unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, rape by use of drugs, oral copulation and sodomy are, of course, far from perfect. But they may go some way to explaining the French reaction to the arrest of Roman Polanski last weekend in Switzerland, on an outstanding 2005 international arrest warrant. While other politicians decline to comment, the French culture minister, Frédéric Mitterrand, says he is "dumbfounded" by Polanski's "absolutely dreadful" detention, declaring forcibly that it made "no sense" for the director to be "thrown to the lions for an ancient story, imprisoned while travelling to an event that was intending to honour him: caught, in short, in a trap". The film-maker, Mitterrand continued, has "had a difficult life" but has "always said how much he loves France, and he is a wonderful man". There is, he added for good measure, "a generous America that we love, and a certain America that frightens us. It's that America that has just shown its face." Meanwhile, a large group of French actors and cinematographers including Fanny Ardant, Pierre Jolivet, Jean-Jacques Beineix and Bertrand Tavernier have signed an angry petition calling for Polanski's "immediate liberation", considering it "inadmissible" that "an international cultural event paying homage to one of the greatest of contemporary cineastes" should be turned into "a police trap". Polanski, said their petition – organised by Thierry Frémaux, director of the Cannes film festival – is "a French citizen, an artist of international renown, and is now threatened with extradition. That extradition . . . would deprive him of his liberty. We demand that he be freed immediately." France, acknowledges Edouard Waintrop, a veteran French critic who now programmes theJordan 9 shoes Fribourg film festival, certainly has a longstanding tradition, dating back to the 19th century, of treating artists differently. "There's the notion of art for art's sake," he says, "a certain leeway that's always allowed to the creative artist. In the 19th century it was elevated into an ideology. It's true we have a rather different vision of artistic licence – and, come to that, of licence in love." Agnès Poirier, a London-based French film critic and writer, agrees that "we are prepared to forgive artists a lot more than we are prepared to forgive ordinary mortals". Cocteau's celebrated 1943 testimony at the trial of Genet and the writer's subsequent presidential pardon, Poirier says, are a perfect demonstration of the notion that "in France, creative genius can usually get away with a great deal". But in a country that has known its own share of child sexual abuse scandals, and been rocked rigid by the horrors of the Dutroux case in neighbouring Belgium, French commentators are well aware that leaping to the defence of a man who in 1977 pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl may not be universally appreciated or understood. Indeed, commenters on many of the French newspaper websites yesterday appeared more or less evenly divided between those who felt Polanski was being unjustly hounded for an unfortunate and long-forgotten mistake, and those outraged by any assumption that the film-maker merited special treatment. This withering comment by "Acouphène" on Le Monde's website is typical of many: "You have to understand them, these poor stars. What's the point of being a celebrity if you can't have the women you want, whether they're above the age of consent or not, whether they're willing or not; if you can't flee abroad and prosper there while our country's justice system looks after you, circulate freely wherever you want to go to be awarded medals and charms at international festivals, and then mobilise opinion in your favour when things start to get tricky?" (Polanski's French citizenship protects him from extradition.) "PatrickO" wonders: "what would have happened if Mohamed, a factory worker from a working-class, immigrant-heavy suburb, had been accused of the same crime?" Waintrop reckons that in theAir jordan VIII face of any accusation of paedophilia, child abuse or sex with a minor, "the reaction of the average French person will be pretty much the same as the reaction of the average American – everyone finds that appalling." But many more French people, he reckons, will be moved to object to Polanski's arrest simply because of the way it was handled. "It's shocking, extremely shocking, that it was done like this, at a festival that was out to honour him; bizarre that Switzerland, a country where he has a house and spends time each year, should suddenly decide to be the only European country that's prepared to take this step, while so many others have allowed Polanski to travel freely," he says. "Why? It's all very strange." France's famed anti-Americanism has little to do with the official French reaction, insists Frémaux. "I think the fact that so many foreign artistes have signed the petition – Wim Wenders, Almodóvar, Kusturica, Michael Mann – shows there is international disapproval of what's happened," he says. "And it's perfectly normal for our culture minister to defend Polanski. His job, his passion, is to be at the side of our artists, whether in moments of triumph or difficulty. No, we're not denouncing America here – the American justice system must take its course, no one disputes that. No one is saying Roman is above the law, no one's saying that because he's rich and famous and a brilliant cineaste he shouldn't face justice. We're denouncing the form – the fact that he was arrested on his way to an international festival." What has inspired many French people's objections, agrees Poirier, is not anti-Americanism but "anti-prudishness, anti self-righteousness. There's a kind of feeling in France that America is acting essentially out of revenge against a very great talent, a man who basically never abided by America's rules – even when he was theClassic Short Ugg Boots most celebrated director in Hollywood." The more so, Poirier adds, because a documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, by the investigative film-maker Marina Zenovich was widely seen in France last year. The film argued convincingly that Polanski never denied the charges against him and that they were dismissed under the terms of a plea bargain: if he pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a minor and agreed to be confined for psychiatric examination (which he was, for 42 days), the American authorities' requirement for punishment would be satisfied. Judge Laurence Rittenband, however, was apparently prepared to tear up the deal, possibly because he was worried about public reaction to a lenient verdict. Polanski therefore fled – as, his victim Samantha Geimer's lawyer implied strongly to Zenovich, anyone in their right mind would have done under those circumstances. "It's obviously not a straightforward case, says Frémaux. "To look again at this now you'd almost need to put the Air Max1970s on trial. Roman has always been extremely reticent about the whole episode. He never talks about it. But it's clear that the judge told him to plead guilty and do some time, and then he'd be OK. That's just one reason why this seems wrong." The fact that the man concerned carries a French passport and was responsible for Cul-de-Sac, Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, The Tenant, Tess and The Pianist might also have something to do with it

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