By Catherine Porter and Ségolène Le Stradic
Avignon, France: In a packed courtroom in Avignon, France, the head judge asked each of the dozens of men accused of raping Gisele Pelicot – while she was nearly comatose and at the invitation of her husband of 50 years – to stand briefly. Then he pronounced their convictions swiftly, one after the other: all guilty.
By the time it was over, every one of the 51 accused men had been convicted, most of them for raping Pelicot in her own bedroom. Her husband, Dominique, 72, who had admitted to drugging her over nearly a decade to abuse her, was the only one to get the maximum sentence of 20 years.
Gisele Pelicot leaves the courthouse next to her lawyer Stephane Babonneau, left.Credit: Getty Images
The rest were given sentences mostly ranging from six to nine years.
And with that, the trial that has both horrified and captivated France for almost four months ended with a victory for the woman at its centre, Gisele Pelicot, who became a feminist icon for her bravery in allowing the case to be tried publicly. That decision allowed the case to more fully expose the horrors of rape in a country where #MeToo hardly gained traction.
After it was over, she stepped out into a swarm of French and international reporters and hundreds of supporters eagerly awaiting her, who held up signs of appreciation and cheered when she emerged. There were so many of them that they stopped traffic on the road outside the courthouse. “Justice for Gisele, justice for all,” one sign read. Another proclaimed, “All the women on Earth support you. Thank you, Gisele.”
A man holds a placard reading “Thank you for your courage Gisele Pelicot” outside the Avignon courthouse, southern France, after the verdict.Credit: AP
As she has throughout the trial, Pelicot retained her trademark poise, giving a simple statement about her decision to allow the world to witness the painful details of her rapes rather than keep them private as is allowed by French law. Her goal was to force discussions of rape, including those facilitated through the use of drugs.
“I wanted, by opening the doors of this trial on September 2, that society would take up the debates that have been launched,” she said. “I never regretted my decision.”
She said that she had drawn strength from the backing she received from around the world, adding that the support had allowed her to return to the courthouse “over long days of this trial” – even when videos of some of the rapes were shown in court at her insistence.
Although all the men were convicted, many feminist activists who have lined up daily to watch the proceedings in an overflow room were upset by the sentences. That was because in all cases, except for Dominique Pelicot’s, the sentences were lower than the prosecutor had recommended. Six of the convicted men were freed, having already served most or all of their time in jail.
Journalists and police officers stand by while waiting for Gisele Pelicot to leave court.Credit: AP
“It means you can rape a woman who was drugged in her own home and walk out free,” said Pascale Plattard, a member of the feminist collective the Amazons of Avignon, who was perched on a fence in front of the courthouse. “I am very angry,” she added.
Lorraine Questiaux, a lawyer whose Paris practice focuses on violence against women, called the sentences “relatively lenient, given the gravity of the acts”.
Many of the lawyers of the accused said that they were satisfied with the sentences, though it was unclear if some would appeal.
The trial has rattled France because of its many sordid elements.
Gisele Pelicot speaks to the press as he leaves the courtroom.Credit: AP
A grandmother and retired manager at a big public company, Pelicot had built what she and her children thought was a happy life with her husband. But that gauzy vision was torn apart one day in late 2020 when the police arrested her husband and told her of the abuse she had been suffering. Only then did she understand why she was losing hair and weight and suffering repeated memory losses so severe that she thought she had Alzheimer’s or a brain tumour.
Dominique Pelicot quickly admitted to crushing sleeping pills into her food and drink for years to rape her when she was in a nearly comatose state. He invited dozens of men he met online to join him, charging them nothing but regularly filming the encounters. (Gisele Pelicot has since divorced him.)
Members of the feminist collective “Les Amazones Avignon” post a message of support for Gisele Pelicot reading “In France in 2024, 94 per cent of the rapist are acquitted” near the courthouse where the Mazan rape trial took place.Credit: AP
The case drew so much attention in part because of the sheer number of men who had agreed to participate and because of their varied and ordinary profiles. The French news media called them “Monsieur Tout-le-monde” – “Mr Everyman” – and experts said they destroyed the myth of the “monster rapist”, replacing it with the image of the man next door. Aged from 26 to 74, they appeared to be a cross-section of middle- and working-class men – tradesmen, firefighters, truck drivers, a journalist, a nurse.
About 15 of the defendants had pleaded guilty. The rest admitted that they had had sex with Pelicot but argued that they had never intended to rape her. Instead, most said that they had been lured by her husband to join the couple for a consensual threesome and had been told that Gisele Pelicot was pretending to sleep or had taken sleeping pills herself. Most painted Dominique Pelicot as a master manipulator; some argued that he had drugged them as well, a charge he denied.
Many offered stunning explanations to the court, qualifying their acts as “involuntary rape”, “non-consenting rape”, “accidental rape” or “rape by body but not mind”.
But the videos – which Gisele Pelicot insisted be played in court as evidence and as a wake-up call to the country – showed the men penetrating her non-responsive body.
Earlier this week, the accused were given a last chance to offer any final words in their defence. Few took it.
Pelicot, however, had her own closing statements for the crowds that awaited her.
“I think of the victims, unrecognised, whose stories often remain hidden. I want you to know that we share the same struggle,” she said, accompanied by her three children and one grandson.
“I have confidence in our ability to collectively seize a future in which everyone, women and men, can live in harmony, with respect and mutual understanding,” Pelicot added. Then, she was whisked off by a crowd of police officers escorting her through the throngs of reporters and those who had come out to support her.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.