Gisèle Pelicot trial: ‘Macho’ society must change attitude on rape

In her final statement to the criminal court in Avignon, she said: “It’s time that the macho, patriarchal society that trivialises rape changes … It’s time we changed the way we look at rape.” 

A total of 51 men are on trial over the rape of Pelicot, whose then husband, Dominique Pelicot, crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into her food and invited dozens of men to rape her while she was unconscious over a nine-year period from 2011 to 2020 in the village of Mazan in Provence. 

Dominique Pelicot has admitted the charges, telling the court: “I am a rapist.”

Some of the other men accused admit rape but others have denied it, saying they did not know Gisèle Pelicot had been drugged, despite video evidence showing her unconscious and snoring loudly.

Gisèle Pelicot, 72, a former logistics manager, has become a feminist hero after insisting that the rape trial of her ex-husband and the other men be held in public to raise awareness of the use of drugs and sedation to rape women. “It’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them,” she has said.

She told the French court on Tuesday that she had heard it being implied in court that it was “almost banal” to rape her. 

“I’ve seen people take the stand who deny rape, and some who admit it. I want to say to these men: when you entered that bedroom, at what point did Madame Pelicot give you her consent?” she said, speaking about herself in the third person.

“At what point did you become aware of this inert body? At what point did you realise there was something happening that was not normal? Did you leave straight away? At what point did you not report it to the police?” 

She said she had had to sit through friends of the accused coming to court to argue that the defendants had always been “respectful” people in their daily lives. “At what moment were they respectful [to me]?” asked Gisèle Pelicot.

She said this was a trial of “cowardice” – implying that society needed to be braver when facing up to the reality of rape. Of the 51 men on trial, she said: “For me they are all guilty. It’s not for me to judge, the court will do its work.” 

She said: “I’ve lost 10 years of my life that I’ll never make up for … This scar will never heal.” 

She would never “find peace” over what had happened, she said, adding the 51 men had “sullied” her. “I’ll have to live with it all my life,” she said.

Asked about Dominique Pelicot telling the court he had a difficult childhood and was raped at the age of nine, she said she believed him. 

But Gisèle Pelicot, whose mother died when she was very young, said: “Whatever trauma you go through in childhood – and I have, though maybe not the same ones – there’s a point when you choose the way you are going to be in life. You go right or left, become a criminal or not. We all make our choices.” 

Dominique Pelicot had told the court that he raped Gisèle Pelicot about two to three times a week. Asked to comment on this, she said: “I think that must have been at the end [of the decade of abuse]. Because my body would not have lasted.” 

She said that she had learned that, just before his arrest in October 2020, he had brought in men to rape her three times in just over two weeks. “I think it was time this stopped.” 

Asked whether Dominique Pelicot, 71, had felt frustrated in their marriage, she said he “had a lot of fantasies that I couldn’t fulfil”, but this did not mean he should have drugged and raped her.

“Why did it come to this? I think what he wanted was Madame Pelicot and not someone else,” she added. “As I didn’t want to go to a swingers’ club, he thought he’d found the solution by putting me to sleep.” 

The trial continues until 20 December.

• The Guardian