Deneuve apologizes to sex assault victims
PARIS – Agence France-Presse
French film star Catherine Deneuve, who set off a worldwide feminist backlash for bashing the #MeToo movement, has apologised to victims of sexual assault, saying there was “nothing good” about harassment.
She was one of 100 prominent French women who signed an open letter last week defending men’s freedom to “hit on” women, and inferring that women fondled on public transport should just get over it.
But the screen legend distanced herself “from certain signatories who have distorted the spirit of the text by expanding upon it in the media,” and apologized “to the victims of these hideous acts who might have felt offended by
the letter.”
Deneuve insisted there was nothing in the original open letter that said “anything good about harassment, otherwise I wouldn’t have signed it.”
And she defended her own feminist credentials citing French feminist icon Simone de Beauvoir’s historic 1971 declaration of women who admitted having abortions while it was still illegal, which she signed.
