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A French court has ordered three of the country’s publications to pay damages to filmmaker Roman Polanski for invasion of privacy.

Polanski, who is currently on house arrest at his mountain chalet in Gstaad awaiting a ruling on an American request for his extradition to face courts over an underage sex charge dating to the 1970s, took four publications to court over their printing of pictures of himself and his family going about their daily life.

So far, the court has found in Polanski’s favour on three of the cases, with a ruling for the fourth expected in the near future.

The civil court has so far awarded the family €12,500 in damages, a figure that falls far short of the €150,000 lawyers had demanded on his behalf.

The publications so far found to be in breach of France’s stringent privacy laws, which prevent the publication of many types of paparazzi pictures, are Le Journal Du Dimanche, which featured a snapshot of Polanski himself looking out of the window of his Swiss home, VSD, which featured a spread of pictures of Polanski’s wife Emmanuelle Seigner and their two children Morgane and Elvis as they passed through an airport, and Voici which featured a snap of Ms Seigner walking in a Swiss street.

Lawyers for the publications had argued that the pictures were in the public interest and depicted newsworthy events, Christophe Bigot, representing the Journal Du Dimanche, told reporters he planned to appeal the decision.

Film director Roman Polanski is taking four French publications to court over the printing of pictures he claims are an invasion of privacy.

Polanski, currently under house arrest at his Swiss home while awaiting news of his fate concerning the 1977 underage sex case that caused him to flee the states, is demanding damages from two newspapers and two magazines that printed photos of him and his family on their private property in the Swiss Alps.

For a picture printed in the Le Journal Du Dimanche, which shows Polanski standing at the window of his Gstaad chalet, lawyer Marion Gregoire demanded damages of €10,000, and requested the same penalty be given to Voici magazine, which featured a snap of Polanski’s wife Emmanualle Seigner out and about in Switzerland.

She also asked that VSD magazine be forced to pay damages of €55,000 for photographs featuring the couple’s children Elvis and Morgane, which were taken at an airport.

Under French law children of celebrities receive special protection from media intrusion, however lawyers for the magazine say the children’s faces had been blurred and so were unrecognisable.

Polanski is also pursuing an invasion of privacy case against Le Parisien.

Speaking during yesterday’s hearing Ms Gregoire told the court the actions were an attempt to “put an urgent stop” to what Polanski feels is an overbearing media interest in his life and family.