CNN:

PARIS, France (CNN) — French authorities expressed solidarity with Roman Polanski’s family Monday after authorities arrested the filmmaker on a 1970s sexual-offense charge involving a 13-year-old girl.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he hoped authorities would respect Polanski’s rights “and that the affair (will) come to a favorable resolution,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The French culture and communications minister, Frederic Mitterrand, said he “learned with astonishment” of Polanski’s arrest. He expressed solidarity with Polanski’s family and said “he wants to remind everyone that Roman Polanski benefits from great general esteem” and has “exceptional artistic creation and human qualities.”
Investigators in the United States say Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl in the 1970s. Polanski pleaded guilty in 1977 to having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, but he fled the United States before he could be sentenced and settled in France.

And it’s not just France. Remember the standing ovation he received during the Oscars? Or this review of the Polanski bio-pic? The conclusion of the review from March.

The film’s title refers to a line tossed off by one of Mr. Polanski’s friends, who notes that while the director remains wanted in the United States he continues to be desired in Europe. That’s not fully true, of course: his autobiographically inflected Holocaust drama “The Pianist” received several Academy Awards, including best director, amid much love and acclamation. But it does get at the strong, curiously divisive reactions he has long inspired, reactions that have as much to do with the disturbing power of his best work as his own history as a victim and a survivor. Mr. Polanski survived the Holocaust and the murder of his wife, Sharon Tate, in 1969 by followers of Charles Manson. It was the American legal system that almost did him in.

How can these people defend a rapist? He was arrested in Switzerland, where he was to receive a lifetime achievement award.