Gisèle Pelicot, the French woman who has become a feminist hero for insisting that the rape trial of her ex-husband and 50 other men should be held in public, has told a court in southern France she was driven by her desire to change society and expose rape culture.
“I am a woman who is totally destroyed, and I don’t know how I’m going to rebuild myself. I’m 72 soon and I’m not sure my life will be long enough to recover from this,” said the former logistics manager, who was repeatedly unknowingly sedated and raped by her then husband, Dominique Pelicot, 71.
Dominique Pelicot crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into her food and drink and invited men to rape her over a nine-year period from 2011 to 2020 in the village of Mazan, in Provence.
Members of the public had queued from before dawn outside the criminal court in Avignon to show their support in a case which has gained coverage worldwide and prompted thousands across France to demonstrate about tightening rape laws and improve the handling of rape cases by the justice system.
Gisèle Pelicot arrived and left court to cheers and applause, as she has done every day since the trial began last month. Many of the supporters said they hoped the case will change attitudes to rape and consent. Several walls of the city were papered with messages of support, including: “Gisèle, women thank you”.
She was asked in court how she has handled sitting through almost two months of evidence from dozens of men who are accused of raping her in her own home when she was drugged and unconscious. She said: “It’s true that I hear lots of women, and men, who say you’re very brave. I say it’s not bravery, it’s will and determination to change society.”
She said she wanted to lift the shame felt by rape victims. “I wanted all woman victims of rape – not just when they have been drugged, rape exists at all levels – I want those woman to say: Mrs Pelicot did it, we can do it too. When you’re raped there is shame, and it’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them.”
She said: “The profile of a rapist is not someone met in a car park late at night. A rapist can also be in the family, among our friends.”
After hearing wives or girlfriends or friends in court saying the accused did not seem capable of rape, she said: “We have to progress on rape culture in society … People should learn the definition of rape.”
Addressing her ex-husband but saying she refused to turn her head to look at him in the dock, she said: “How can the perfect man have got to this? How could you have betrayed me to this point? How could you have brought these strangers into my bedroom?”
She said: “I always tried to lift you higher, you who plumbed the depths of the human soul, but you made your own choices.”
Dominique Pelicot has admitted the charges against him and said that for almost a decade he was in contact with men on an online chatroom titled “without her knowledge” where he would organise for strangers to come to the couple’s home in Mazan to rape his wife while she was in a comatose state in her bed.
He has said he administered drugs to her at mealtimes or in bowls of ice-cream he brought to her as she watched TV after dinner. “I am a rapist, like the others in this room,” Pelicot has told the court, saying the other men on trial were aware they were being invited to rape his wife.
Gisèle Pelicot was asked in court if she had noticed moments when he might have drugged her food or drinks. She said she had not noticed falling under sedation and must have passed out very quickly.
She told the court: “He made a lot of meals. I saw that as him being attentive. I know that one night he came to collect me at Avignon station after 10 days with my grandchildren. He had already prepared the meal – mashed potato. Two plates were already in the oven. I put olive oil on my potatoes and he put butter, so it was easy to see which plate was his.”
She said: “We would have a glass of white wine together. I never found anything strange about my potatoes. We finished eating. Often when it’s a football match on TV, I’d let him watch it alone. He brought my ice-cream to my bed, where I was, my favourite flavour, raspberry. And I thought, how lucky I am, he’s a love.”
“I never felt my heart flutter, I didn’t feel anything, I must have gone under very quickly. I would wake up with my pyjamas on. The mornings, I must have been more tired than usual, but I walk a lot and thought it was that.”
Pelicot said she had noticed problems with her health. She feared she was having neurological problems or could have Alzheimer’s, and she had really appreciated her husband apparently standing by her through that.
“He took me to a neurologist, to scanners when I was worried. He also went with me to the gynaecologist. For me, he was someone I trusted entirely.” She said to Dominique Pelicot in court: “So many times, I said to myself how lucky am I to have you at my side.”
She said she had also noticed gynaecological problems, which he had also supported her through. “I consulted three gynaecologists. Several times I had woken up and felt like I had lost my waters – as happens when you give birth.”
She said of the druggings: “In the morning I take my breakfast in the kitchen, it’s basic, orange juice, toast, jam, honey. He could have put it in my orange juice or my coffee. But I didn’t feel that moment where I went under [as sedated].”
She said she once went for a morning hairdressing appointment and her husband insisted on driving her. She had what seemed like a blackout, she said, and did not remember the haircut or styling.
In almost two months of testimony, the court has heard from dozens of accused men. The majority have denied rape. Some said they thought that she was pretending to be asleep or was playing a game, or felt the fact her husband had consented was sufficient.
A total of 50 men were identified by police from films meticulously labelled and stored by Dominique Pelicot. The men on trial alongside him could face sentences of up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
In total, 49 men are accused of rape, one of attempted rape and one of sexual assault. Five others are also accused of possessing child abuse imagery. Aged between 26 and 74, the accused include a nurse, a journalist, a prison officer, a local councillor, a soldier, lorry drivers and farm workers.
The trial is expected to run until 20 December.