A French woman who criticised the #MeToo movement has claimed that rape victims can enjoy the experience.

Brigitte Lahaie, a porn star-turned-agony aunt, caused an outcry by claiming on French television that some women have orgasms when they are raped.

She was disowned by other signatories in the '100 women' group, that includes film star Catherine Deneuve, who wrote an open letter condemning what they said was sexual 'puritanism' caused by the Harvey Weinstein scandal.

Brigitte Lahaie, a porn star-turned-agony aunt, has caused an outcry with her comments that some women can enjoy rape

Along with actress Catherine Deneuve (pictured), Lahaie is a signatory to an open letter, condemning the #MeToo movement

The 62-year-old has apologised for causing offence saying she regretted 'my remarks were taken out of context' but repeated her view, The Times reported.

'What I meant to say - because I know matters of sexuality by heart - is that sometimes the body and the mind do not coincide,' she said.

Ms Lahaie, who gave relationship advice in a popular call-in programme for more than a decade, also claimed she had 'lynched' on social media adding: 'If that's the way the world works, then I apologise.'

Her comments came in a television debate with Caroline de Haas, one of a group of 30 feminists led who have themselves written a letter, condemning the '100 women'.

In her their exchanges, de Haas said: 'How do you give back to women the power of their bodies? It's simple — you stop the violence. After you have been the victim of rape you no longer have so much pleasure.'

Catherine Millet, the author of the best selling 'The Sexual Life of Catherine M', said women should just shout at men who harass them

Oscar-nominated Deneuve, 74, is best known internationally for playing a bored housewife who spends her afternoons as a prostitute in Luis Bunuel's classic 1967 film, 'Belle du Jour'.

She has made no secret of her annoyance at social media campaigns to shame men accused of harassing women.

'I don't think it is the right method to change things, it is excessive,' she said last year, referring to the #MeToo hashtag.

The letter, which was published in Le Monde, set off an international furore, with feminists in France and elsewhere attacking the signatories for defending men's freedom to pester and 'hit on' women.

Catherine Millet, 69, author of a bestselling memoir, and one of the movers behind the letter, has herself hit back, claiming the campaign to counter sexual harassment was casting women as 'victims and the fragile prey' of men.

The art critic and author of 'The Sexual Life of Catherine M', told French radio: 'We are not idiots.

Samantha Geimer said she 'agreed entirely' with Deneuve saying 'women need equality, respect and sexual freedom.

Geimer alleges she was raped by film director Roman Polanski when she was 13 but wants charges dropped

'Rape and sexual violence should be criminalised, but we cannot ban the least little gesture, dirty word or inappropriate behaviour. It's crazy, we're stopping flirting now.'

Millet, who has written graphically about her libertine lifestyle, said she was against a new tougher French law against sexual harassment.

All women need to do was to shout at men who rubbed up against them on the Paris metro, she insisted, adding that she no more troubled by a man's unwanted hand on her knee than by smoke from a cigar.

'It happened to me when I was younger but now unfortunately I am too old for it to happen. I would shout at them and forget it a minute later.'

Millet said several victims, including Samantha Geimer, who was raped by film director Roman Polanski when she was 13 but wants charges against him dropped, have since signed their letter.

Geimer said she 'agreed entirely' with Deneuve and the other signatories, tweeting that 'women need equality, respect and sexual freedom'.