Sitting across a courtroom from the husband who drugged and raped her for a decade, along with the complete strangers he invited to join in the attacks, Gisèle Pelicot was the epitome of dignity.
After bravely choosing to waive her right to anonymity, the grandmother has looked each of her rapists in the eye during a gruelling four-month public trial which horrified the world.
The 72-year-old’s remarkable courage in the face of unfathomable abuse and her simple message – that she and other victims of sexual crimes have no reason to feel ashamed – has inspired conversations about rape culture across the globe as she became a symbol of the struggle against sexual violence.
Each day, scores of women queued outside the courtroom in Avignon, France, to applaud Gisele as she entered. She told the trial she wants women who have been raped to know that “it’s not for us to have shame – it’s for them”.
On Thursday, she watched as the man she had once trusted the most, her husband of 50 years Dominique Pelicot, was found guilty.
He recruited complete strangers in an online chatroom to rape her while she was unconscious as five judges returned their verdicts at Avignon’s Palais de Justice. Fifty men stood trial alongside Pelicot.
During weeks of appalling testimony, the court heard how in 2011, after 40 years of seemingly happy marriage, Pelicot – an electrician nearing retirement – decided to begin sedating and raping the mother of his three grown-up children.
Pelicot, 72, who admitted his crimes, testified that he hid tranquilisers in food and drink that he gave his wife, knocking her out so profoundly that he could do what he wanted to her for hours.
Not content with his own sordid attacks, he then invited others he met in a now-closed ‘Coco’ online chatroom to join in the abuse over the next nine years, which he meticulously documented in a sick library of homemade videos. Most assaults were carried out in their own bedroom in Mazan, a small town in Provence where they retired in 2013.
Totally unaware of the violations being carried out while she was unconscious, Gisèle visited doctors as she struggled with blackouts, weightloss and oversleeping – even undergoing neurological tests for Alzheimers or a brain tumour.
The horrifying truth of what was causing her symptoms was only uncovered in 2020, when Pelicot was arrested for surreptitiously filming up women’s skirts in a supermarket. Police then found more 20,000 images and grotesquely explicit videos on his computer in files marked ‘abuse’.
Gisèle said “her world was destroyed” when she was shown pictures of the attacks by investigators. The screams of her daughter Caroline Darian, 45, as she told her children of their father’s abuse will be forever etched in her mind, she said.
Gisèle, supported by Caroline and her other children David and Florian, quickly cleared out the house in Mazan, leaving with just two suitcases and her beloved French bulldog, Lancome.
In court, Caroline described her father as “one of the worst sexual predators of the last 20 years”. She revealed her belief he drugged her too after photos were found on his computer of her asleep in bed in underwear that she did not recognise as her own.
Naked photos of his daughters-in-law, taken with hidden cameras, were also allegedly found during the investigation. However Pelicot, who admitted assaulting his wife and told the court “I am a rapist”, denies abusing other family members.
Caroline has since has joined forces with MP Sandrine Josso to produce a drug-testing kit that could be made available in pharmacies throughout France. It now has government backing for a trial rollout.
Spurred on by the trial, France’s government this month helped roll out a media campaign alerting the public to the dangers of chemical submission.
In the disturbing videos of the drugged attacks, which Gisèle’s lawyers fought to be shown in court to prove she was unconscious, police investigators counted 72 different abusers but weren’t able to identify them all. In many she could be heard snoring or choking as she was assaulted.
“They regarded me like a rag doll, like a garbage bag,” Gisèle testified in court.
The fact they broadly represent a microcosm of French society means they have been dubbed Monsieur-Tout-Le-Monde (Mr Everyman).
Staggeringly, some defended their actions even in the face of video evidence. Some argued that Pelicot’s consent covered his wife, too. Others insisted that they hadn’t intended to rape anyone when they responded to the husband’s invites.
A number laid blame at his door, saying he misled them into thinking they were partaking in a consensual kink, while others even suggested that perhaps Pelicot had drugged them too – which he denied.
The dozens of defendants, who wore masks to cover their faces, were seen strolling around, chatting or returning from a cafe across the road as the trial continued. Gisèle, with her face bravely uncovered, was forced to queue up for court security each day alongside her attackers.
Meanwhile Pelicot, who has been remanded in custody since 2020, described the rapes as “a perversion, an addiction”.
Appearing in court medicated with a cane, he tearfully recounted how he had been raped as a child. He claimed he had wanted his wife to participate in partner swaps and her refusal, together with trauma from his childhood, had helped to trigger his abusive behaviour.
“I am a rapist just like all the others in this room,” he said, adding, “I ask my wife, my children, my grandchildren to accept my apologies. I regret what I did. I ask for your forgiveness, even if it is not forgivable.”
During her now-ex husband’s testimony in the early stages of the trial, Gisèle wore a pair sunglasses. But there came a time – a few weeks in – where she chose to remove them.
“She had these sunglasses she used to hide her eyes… to protect her intimacy,” her criminal lawyer Stéphane Babonneau told the BBC.
“But there was a point when she felt she no longer needed to protect herself. She didn’t need [the glasses].”
Gisele, who has now changed back to her maiden name, later told the court: “I’ve decided not to be ashamed, I’ve done nothing wrong. They (rapists) are the ones who must be ashamed.”
Protests have been organised across France to show support for her, with many women expressing admiration for her courage.
“It’s not courage. It’s determination to change things,” she said. “This is not just my battle, but that of all rape victims.”
