French actress defends men, lambasts #MeToo campaign for opening up 'witch-hunt'

Catherine Deneuve, the French actress, hit out against the #MeToo campaign and its French equivalent #BalanceTonProc, that began in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein allegations, saying that it has enabled a culture of witch-hunting men and creating an environment of 'puritanical ... wave of purification'.

In an open letter, Deneuve said that: “Rape is a crime, but trying to seduce someone, even persistently or cack-handedly, is not – nor is men being gentlemanly a macho attack,” said the letter published in the newspaper Le Monde.

“Men have been punished summarily, forced out of their jobs when all they did was touch someone’s knee or try to steal a kiss,” said the letter, which was also signed by Catherine Millet, author of the explicit 2002 bestseller The Sexual Life of Catherine M.

Men had been dragged through the mud, they argued, for “talking about intimate subjects during professional dinners or for sending sexually charged messages to women who did not return their attentions”.

Reacting to the development, many Twitter users posted their reactions.