Catherine Deneuve clarifies her criticism of #MeToo, apologises to victims

Catherine Denueve has issued an apology for offending ‘all the victims of odious acts’ in an open letter she signed last week, which decried the #MeToo movement as ‘puritanical’ and a ‘witch hunt’.

However, the French screen icon was quick to hit back at those who questioned her dedication to the feminist cause.

Deneuve was among 100 women who signed the letter, which was then published in the newspaper Le Monde.

In a ‘clarification’ published in Liberation, she reminded people that she also signed the ‘Manifesto of 343 Sluts’ in 1971, penned by Simone de Beauvoir, in which she admitted to having had an abortion at a time when abortion in France was illegal.

She faced criminal prosecution for the admission.

“That is why I would like to say to conservatives, racists and traditionalists of all kinds who have found it strategic to support me that I am not fooled. They will have neither my gratitude nor my friendship,” she wrote.

“I am a free woman and I will remain so. I fraternally salute all the victims of odious acts that may have felt aggrieved by this letter published in Le Monde. It is to them and to them alone that I apologize.”

However, she went on to double down on some of the points made in the original letter from Le Monde last week, which advocated men’s rights to ‘seduce women’.

“Rape is a crime, but insistent or clumsy flirting is not a crime, nor is gallantry a macho aggression,” the editorial read.

Though not mentioning the cases specifically, in her clarification Deneuve appeared to refer to the cases of Kevin Spacey and the head of the New York Ballet Peter Martins, who have both been accused of sexual harassment and abuse, and have been toppled ‘without any other form of trial’.

“Nothing in the text claims that harassment is good. Otherwise, I would not have signed,” she wrote.

“I do not like this characteristic of our time… when simple denunciations on social networks generate punishment, resignation and often media lynching.

“I do not excuse anything, [but] I do not decide on the guilt of these men because I am not qualified to. And few are.

“I believe in justice.”

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