The director of the Tate as well as more than 100 international figures have come out in support of the director of the prestigious École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, The Times has learnt.

Mr Cousseau, 60, is accused of displaying works of “a violent pornographic nature, unacceptable for a young public”.

If convicted, he faces a fine of €75,000 and up to three years in prison. His alleged crime is staging an exhibition of provocative and explicit images, including a painting by Gary Gross of a young girl in a bath, heavily made-up and looking seductive, a video piece by Elke Krystufek, in which a girl performed a graphic masturbation scene, and photographs by Annette Messager of young children with their eyes scratched out. They were part of an exhibition, Presumed Innocent: Contemporary Art and Childhood, which he mounted in 2000 at the Centre d’Arts Plastiques Contemporains, one of several important museums in Bordeaux, where he served as director.

Among 80 featured artists, several were no strangers to controversy — notably Messager, whose previous works have included graffiti-like drawings on photographs of naked bodies, and Mike Kelley, who has made toys from excrement.

Many of them have been exhibited at the Tate, the Serpentine and the Hayward, among other British institutions. The petition — whose signatories include Ralph Rugoff, director of the Hayward, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, director of international projects at the Serpentine — states: “We wish to express our dismay at this attack on the artistic and curatorial freedom of expression and offer our unconditional support for Henry-Claude Cousseau in the present circumstances, together with the exhibition curators Marie-Laure Bernadac (a curator at the Louvre) and Stéphanie Moisdon (an art critic).” The charges could also extend to those two curators, as well as the former director. A preliminary hearing of the case is set to be heard in Bordeaux on December 19.

A judicial inquiry was opened in 2000 after complaints from La Mouette, a child protection association in Agen, which was not taking any calls yesterday.

It has taken until now for Mr Cousseau to be charged with “spreading violent messages of a pornographic character or contrary to the dignity due to a minor”. Accepting that some of the works were shocking, Alfred Pacquement, director of the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and another prominent signatory, said: “What we all do, whether the Centre Pompidou or the Tate, is put a label to tell the public that some works are sexually explicit.”

Paying tribute to Mr Cousseau’s talents as a director, he noted that his latest appointment in Paris was made by the Minister of Culture: “He is a professional and serious figure in the arts.”