A collective of 100 prominent French women including famed actress Catherine Deneuve have denounced the "puritanism" that followed the wake of the allegations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, declaring that men should be "free to hit on" women.
The letter in Le Monde signed by around 100 French women writers, performers and academics deplored the wave of "denunciations" that has followed claims that producer Weinstein raped and sexually assaulted women over decades.
They claimed that the "witch-hunt" that has followed threatens sexual freedom.
"Rape is a crime but insistent or clumsy flirting is not, nor is gallantry a macho aggression,"
"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 points to the dangers of the #Metoo campaign, saying that it has led to a public accusations against individuals who, "without being given the opportunity to respond or defend themselves, were put exactly on the same level as sex offenders."
"It is the characteristic of Puritanism to borrow, in the name of a so-called general good, the arguments of the protection of women and their emancipation to bind them to the status of eternal victims, poor little things under the influence of the demon patriarchy, as in the good old days of witchcraft," they wrote.