Deneuve blasts MeToo campaign, claims it’s a witchhunt of men

London: Veteran French actor Catherine Deneuve has decried the MeToo movement, which started as a result of the sexual harassment scandal in the Hollywood, saying that it unfairly punishes men for flirting “insistently or clumsily”.

The actor denounced the # MeToo movement and its French equivalent, # Balancetonporc ( Call out your pig), in a letter, signed by over 100 French actors, and said the movements have created a totalitarian climate by publicly prosecuting private experiences.

“Rape is a crime, but trying to seduce someone, even persistently or cackhandedly, is not – nor is men being gentlemanly a macho attack,” said the letter published in the newspaper Le Monde, according to Guardian.

“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,” the letter stated.

The letter also denounced a “new puritanism” and the tide of “denunciations” that have brought down scores of men following the sexscandal that rocked Hollywood last year.

It claimed that men have been subjected to mudslinging for “talking about intimate subjects during professional

or for sending sexually charged messages to women who did not return their attentions”.

The letter also denounced a “new puritanism” and the tide of “denunciations” that have brought down scores of men following the sexscandal that rocked Hollywood last year

— AFP Statuettes known as ‘ the Actor’ on display at the American Fine Arts Foundry on in Burbank, California on Tuesday, where the statues are being made for the Screen Actors Guild ( SAG) Awards to be held on January 21.

Catherine Deneuve