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Gisèle Pelicot said after 51 men were all found guilty Thursday in the drug-and-rape trial that made her a feminist hero that the ordeal had been “very difficult” and expressed support for other victims of sexual violence.
“We share the same struggle,” she said in her first words after the court in the southern French city of Avignon handed down prison terms of three to 20 years in the shocking case that stunned France and sparked a national reckoning over the damage of rape culture.
Pelicot – whose courage and stoicism have turned her into an internationally recognized figure and an icon for many women – said she was thinking of her grandchildren after enduring more than three months of court hearings dealing with the nearly decade of rape and other abuse that t was done to her by her now ex-husband and his accomplices.
“It is also for them that I lead this fight,” she said of her grandchildren.
The court sentenced her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, to 20 years in prison raped and raped her and that other men raped her while she was unconscious.
The sentence was the maximum possible according to French law. He was found guilty of all the charges against him. At 72, it could mean he spends the rest of his life in prison. He will not be eligible to apply for early release until at least two-thirds of the sentence has been served.
Roger Arata, the leading judge of the court in the southern French city of Avignon, told Pelicot to stand trial. After it was delivered, he sat down again and cried.
Arata read one after the other verdicts against Pelicot and the 50 other men tried in the case.
“You are therefore declared guilty of grave rape of the person of Mme. Gisèle Pelicot,” said the judge as he worked through names on the long list of suspects.
Gisèle Pelicot sat on one side of the courtroom, in front of the defendants and sometimes nodded her head when verdicts were announced. Handing out the guilty verdicts and sentences took Arata just over an hour.
Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer, Béatrice Zavarro, said she would consider a possible appeal, but also expressed the hope that Gisèle Pelicot would find comfort in the court’s rulings.
“I wanted Ms. Pelicot to be able to come out of these hearings in peace, and I think the verdicts will contribute to this relief for Ms. Pelicot,” she said.
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Of the 50 accused of rape, only one was acquitted, but was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault. Another man was also found guilty on the charge of sexual assault for which he was tried – meaning that all 51 of the defendants were found guilty in one way or another.
In a side room where family members of suspects watched the proceedings on television screens, some burst into tears and gasped as the sentences were revealed.
Protesters gathered outside the courthouse followed the proceedings on their phones. Some read the statements and applauded when they were announced inside. Some carried oranges as symbolic gifts for the suspects going to prison.
Prosecutors had asked that Dominique Pelicot receive the maximum sentence of 20 years and for sentences of 10 to 18 years for the others who were tried for rape.
But the court was more lenient than prosecutors had hoped, with many sentenced to less than a decade in prison.
For the defendants other than Dominique Pelicot, the sentences ranged from three to 15 years in prison, with some of the time suspended for some of them. Arata told six suspects they were now free, taking into account the time already spent in detention awaiting trial.
Dominique Pelicot admitted drugging his then-wife of 50 years for years so he and strangers he recruited online could abuse her while he filmed the attacks.
The horrific ordeal Gisèle Pelicot, now a 72-year-old grandmother, endured for almost a decade in what she thought was a loving marriage, and her courage during the bruising process have turned the retired energy company worker into a feminist hero of ‘ the nation
The trial stretched over more than three months, galvanized campaigners against sexual violence and spurred calls for tougher measures to stamp out rape culture.
The defendants were all accused of participating in Dominique Pelicot’s sordid rape and abuse fantasies that were carried out in the couple’s retirement home in the small Provence town of Mazan and elsewhere.
Dominique Pelicot testified that he hid sedatives in food and drink he gave his then-wife, and knocked her out so deeply that he could do whatever he wanted with her for hours.
One of the men was found guilty and sentenced to 12 years in prison not for attacking Gisèle Pelicot, but for drugging and raping his own wife – with the help and drugs of Dominique Pelicot, who was also found guilty of rape of that man’s wife.
The five judges voted in their verdicts by secret ballot, with majority votes in favor of the convictions and sentences.
Campaigners against sexual violence hoped for an exemplary prison sentence and saw the trial as a possible turning point in the fight against sexual violence and the use of drugs to suppress victims.
The courage of Gisèle Pelicot in giving up her right to anonymity as a survivor of sexual abuse and successfully insisting on the hearings and shocking evidence – including videos – to be heard in open court have sparked conversations both at the national level in France and among families, couples and groups of friends about how to better protect women and the role men can play in pursuing that goal.
“Men are starting to talk to women – their girlfriends, mothers and friends – in ways they didn’t have before,” said Fanny Foures, 48, who joined other women from the feminist group Les Amazones for messages of support. for Gisèle Pelicot to glue on. walls around Avignon for judgment.
“It was awkward at first, but now real dialogues are happening,” she said.
“Some women realize, perhaps for the first time, that their ex-husband has violated them, or that someone close to them has committed abuse,” Foures added. “And men begin to take into account their own behavior or complicity – things that they have ignored or failed to act on. It is difficult, but it creates change.”
A large banner that campaigners hung on a city wall opposite the courthouse read, “MERCI GISELE” – thank you Gisèle.
Dominique Pelicot first came to the attention of the police in September 2020, when a supermarket security guard caught him filming women’s skirts.
Police subsequently found his library of self-made images documenting years of abuse to his wife – more than 20,000 photos and videos in total, stored on computer drives and cataloged in folders marked “abuse”, “her rapists”, “night alone” and others titles.
The abundance of evidence led the police to the other suspects. In the videos, investigators counted 72 different abusers, but could not identify them all.
Although some of the accused – including Dominique Pelicot – admitted they were guilty of rape, many did not, even in the face of video evidence. The hearings sparked a wider debate in France over whether the country’s legal definition of rape should be expanded to include specific mention of consent.
Some defendants claimed that Dominique Pelicot’s consent also included his wife. Some sought to excuse their behavior by insisting that they did not intend to rape anyone when they responded to the man’s invitations to come to their home. Some laid the blame at his door, saying he misled them into thinking they were participating in consensual kink.
