Feminism in France is as old as the revolution. It’s just not feminism as many of us know it. The anti-#MeToo letter signed by French national treasure Catherine Deneuve and 100 other well-known women has sparked an international furore that perfectly encapsulates the chasm between feminist ideologies.

In essence, it comes down to the question of whether women should be, or want to be, regarded as sex objects. French women including Deneuve, some of whom say they are feminists, view being desired as a sexual object as an intrinsic part of being female, as well as part-and-parcel of sexual freedom and the intricate pattern of human relationships. It’s part of what’s famously known as the “French cultural exception”.

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The signatories are quite specific about where they stand on this sex object question: “A woman can, in the same day, lead a professional team and enjoy being a man’s sexual object, without being a ‘whore’ or a vile accomplice of the patriarchy,” they write.

They should have stopped there, because most women, including French women, would surely draw the line at what follows: “She can make sure that her wages are equal to a man’s but not feel eternally traumatised by a man who rubs himself against her in the subway, even if that is regarded as an offence. She can even consider this act as the expression of a great sexual deprivation, or even a non-event.” Really? A bit of frottage on the Metro is nothing to make a fuss about, or is even a service to the sex-starved?

France gave feminism Olympe de Gouges, the revolutionary guillotined in 1793 for her pamphlet “declaration of the rights of women and citizens”, as well as Simone de Beauvoir, whose treatise on the historical oppression of women, The Second Sex, is credited with launching second-wave feminism. But French feminism remains a paradox.

There are occasions when it seems French women simply don’t get the notion of sisterhood or female solidarity. The anti-#MeToo letter is one of them, with its defence of men’s right to “importune”, grope or rub themselves against women, and the suggestion that most women can’t distinguish between a clumsy pass and persistent harassment.

France gave feminism Simone de Beauvoir, whose The Second Sex is credited with launching second-wave feminism

Joan Wallach Scott, professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, believes the key to understanding gender relations in France is the idea of la séduction, which she says provides a different template to the American idea of “sexual harassment”. But while there’s nothing original in French people despising aspects of US culture, or indeed feminists falling out, the anti-#MeToo brigade is saying something else.

These women insist they are more than their bodies, but their self-worth is inextricable from their heterosexual sexual relationships, the business of attracting a man and keeping him while trying to keep other women off him – but not necessarily keeping him off other women. This Sisyphean effort to stay on top of a sexual pyramid propped up by male desire is often prioritised over any children.

In a French context, the anti-#MeToo letter is not so surprising. It reminded me of the reaction to the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair, the biggest political sex scandal in France in recent years, and an illustration of the country’s continuing struggle with equal rights.

After Strauss-Kahn – a notoriously predatory pursuer of women who was once tipped to become president – was accused of sexually assaulting a New York hotel maid in 2011 (an accusation he denied), his friends and associates, many of whom were women, trooped through radio and television studios and the columns of newspapers to defend him, discredit his victim, and denounce American “puritanism”. After all, “nobody died”, said one former minister.

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It was then that I met Tristane Banon, a friend of Strauss-Kahn’s daughter, who claimed he tried to rape her – something he again denied. She’d kept quiet about it for years. Why had she not gone to the police, I asked? Her mother persuaded her not to.

French feminists hoped the Strauss-Kahn affair would break the omerta on rampant male harassment and violence, but little has changed. MPs, local officials and other high-profile men have since been named as harassers, but not shamed or punished. The French #MeToo campaign, called #BalanceTonPorc (Squeal on Your Pig), has brought a flood of allegations but little action.

But a new generation of women’s rights activists such as Caroline de Haas – who, with 30 other women, wrote a vigorous response to the Deneuve letter – and organisations including Osez le Féminisme (Dare to be Feminist) and Les Chiennes de Garde (Guard Dogs), are slowly changing attitudes.

Philosopher and historian Geneviève Fraisse calls the anti- #MeToo declaration “an old philosophical refrain hiding a fundamental problem in France …how to establish symmetry between the sexes. Whenever there’s a feminist revolution, there are cries of ‘danger’. The opposition between puritanism and libertinage is a chestnut of French ideology.” She is surely right.

• Kim Willsher is an award-winning foreign correspondent based in Paris

• This article was amended on 18 January 2018 to correct the name of the organisation Osez le Féminisme from Ozez Le Feminisme, as we had it in an earlier version.

