"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."

Yet, "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 the most celebrated director in Hollywood.'"

They think he's not above the law and that the American justice system should do what it's supposed to do...but they're completely against his arrest and insist that he should be released. I don't understand how in the world having someone arrested who broke the law and admitted he broke the law, and then subsequently fled justice is being prudish or self-righteous. And how in the hell is it revenge?? They come right out and say that he never abided by America's rules....in other words...he blatantly BROKE LAWS.

What a bunch of stupid logic. "We admit that he broke the laws of the land he chose to live in, and we don't think he should be above the law, but we think you should let him go, and you enforcing your laws and your right to enforce those laws is prudish and vengeful."

The only conclusions I can come to from reading that is the cult of celebrity is even more ridiculously ingrained in French society than in other parts of the world, and that in spite of whatever they wish to claim that some of their anger is a result of their "famed anti-Americanism."