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19 Dec 2024

Gisèle Pelicot: feminist icon lauded as rapists are jailed

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Gisèle Pelicot insisted upon waiving her right to anonymity to make the four-month trial public and force a debate on problematic attitudes towards sexual violence.

By Jamie Roberton, Amelia Jenne and Flavian Charuel

Gisèle Pelicot, 72.

A mother-of-three; a grandmother-of-seven; a retired logistics manager – and now global feminist icon.

In her own son’s words, it is Gisèle’s name that will be remembered most from this horrifying episode.

Not that of her now ex-husband, a sexual predator who drugged his wife for nearly a decade before inviting countless men that he met online into their home to rape her while she lay unconscious.

Nor the names of those men – so wide-ranging in their ages, professions and backgrounds – who took him up on the sadistic offer.

Gisèle Pelicot insisted upon waiving her right to anonymity to make the four-month trial public and force a debate on problematic attitudes towards sexual violence.

”It’s not for us to have shame – it’s for them,” she told the court in the southern city of Avignon.

Just as she had on every other morning of the trial, Ms Pelicot walked past the graffitied walls – emblazoned with her name and face – on Thursday before smiling at the increasingly expanding lines of her adoring supporters.

She then walked into court with her head held high to witness the dozens of men who had raped her – including the mastermind of the abuse who she had been married to for 50 years – finally face some form of justice.

Before light broke, crowds gathered outside the Palais de Justice in Avignon to sing and unveil signs saying, “Thank you for your courage Gisèle.”

Lines of women were also there to confront  those found to have inflicted such horror on their hero.

“Rapists ,we see you,” they chanted vociferously, as a host of men arrived to hear their fate.

The perpetrators were sometimes followed by their tearful partners or wives. One was carrying a young child into the courthouse.

A legal representative ticked off their names from a long paper list as they filtered through, most hiding their faces with surgical masks or balaclavas.

All were carrying bags as they prepared for life inside prison for their role in one of the world’s most significant rape cases.

Ms Pelicot’s supporters gathered around phones outside as guilty after guilty verdict was delivered inside a packed courtroom.

Each perpetrator stood at the sound of their name before the presiding judge declared: “You are declared guilty of aggravated rape.”

They then sat back down, prompting the turn of the next abuser.

All 51 defendants were found guilty, the overwhelming majority for raping Ms Pelicot.

Dominique Pelicot was given the maximum 20-year sentence for drugging and raping his wife.

Forty-seven others were convicted of rape, two of attempted rape and two of sexual assault.

Pelicot’s co-defendants received jail terms of between three and 15 years. Two of the men had their jail terms suspended.

Those who avoided prison were met with boos and shouting as they fled the court vicinity.

The horror of Dominique Pelicot’s actions only emerged when he was caught filming under women’s skirts by a supermarket security guard in September 2020.

A subsequent police investigation uncovered the sheer scale of his crimes, with thousands of videos found of him and others raping his wife.

Gisèle Pelicot was summoned to a police station to be told the shattering story about herself that she never knew.

The distressing details she learned would paint a picture of her husband as one of the most infamous sexual predators in history.

Dominique Pelicot would crush sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into his unsuspecting wife’s food, leaving her unconscious and completely vulnerable to attack.

He would instruct the men that he had met online to park at a nearby sports centre, where children play football at weekends, so as not to trigger neighbours’ suspicions.

His fellow rapists were told not to wear aftershave or smoke cigarettes in order not to leave a scent.

The visits increased in the time of Covid lockdowns.

The trial has sent shockwaves through France, raising alarm about the country’s definition of rape, attitudes towards consent and use of drugs or “chemical submission”.

Emerging from court on Thursday afternoon, Gisèle Pelicot told fellow survivors of sexual violence that “we have the same struggle… often in the shadows”.

“By opening the doors of this trial on September 2, I wanted all of society to be a witness to the debates that took place here,” she said.

“I never regretted making this decision.”

The historic trial is over. The guilty verdicts are in.

But the actions of a 72-year-old grandmother will long be felt far beyond an Avignon courtroom.

It is hard to imagine that until recently, the world did not know what Ms Pelicot looked or sounded like.

She is now the embodiment of strength and bravery in the fight against sexual violence.

As Gisèle Pelicot left court, still smiling, she was greeted by roaring applause.

Their overwhelming message: “Merci Gisèle”.