(CNN) French actress Catherine Deneuve has apologized to sexual assault victims who may have been upset by a letter she signed in a newspaper last week arguing that the #MeToo campaign against sexual harassment had spiraled out of control.

In a follow-up letter published in the left-wing newspaper Liberation on Sunday, Deneuve, 74, disassociated herself from those who have used her intervention to justify male harassment of women as a normal part of life.

The film star said that she was sending a fraternal salute to "the victims of these hideous acts who may have been shocked" by the Le Monde letter. "It is to them, and them alone, that I offer my apologies," she wrote. In French "fraternally" also means "sisterly."

Deneuve pointed out that she had been at the forefront of the campaign to legalize abortion in France in the early 1970s.

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