Catherine Deneuve, Catherine Millet, and More French Women Sign Letter Against #MeToo

A letter published in the newspaper Le Monde, signed by 100 French women, argues that the #MeToo movement has gotten out of hand.

“Rape is a crime, but trying to seduce someone, even persistently or cack-handedly is not, nor is men being gentlemanly a macho attack,” the letter read, via a translation from The Guardian. Actress Catherine Deneuve and writer Catherine Millet signed the letter in addition to dozens of other French Whos across industries: dentists, historians, journalists, artists, psychiatrists, and more.

“As women we do not recognise ourselves in this feminism, which beyond denouncing the abuse of power takes on a hatred of men and of sexuality,” they write. While the letter acknowledges that the Weinstein investigation has led to a “necessary” awareness of harassment, it ultimately compares the way women are victimizing themselves to be “poor little things” as a moment that harkens back to the “good old days of witchcraft.” Translation: it’s apparently a witch-hunt.

It’s the same line of thinking that has been published and republished in various outlets since the Weinstein allegations broke, all of which seem to assume women do not understand the differences between rape and sexual harassment, or that the #MeToo movement is trying to end flirting (or, in the case of this French letter, “seduction.”) So to the French women who felt it necessary to make this viewpoint heard…we’ve heard it already!