The mass rape trial that has shocked France and outraged the world is set to conclude Thursday with the conviction of Dominique Pelicot, a retired electrician and estate agent who admitted to drugging his ex-wife, Gisèle, and inviting strangers into their bedroom to sexually assault her. Pelicot, 72, is likely to receive the maximum 20-year prison sentence demanded by the public prosecutor after a three-and-a-half-month trial in Avignon.
Pelicot is one of 51 men accused in this disturbing case, with many denying the charges. The sentences for those convicted of aggravated rape range from 10 to 18 years, while one man, accused of sexual aggression, faces four years. One suspect remains at large, being tried in absentia.
At the tail end of the trial, twelve of the accused men apologized to Gisèle Pelicot, and some argued that they were not aware that a rape was being committed. However, the defense emphasized that the videos made by Pelicot himself clearly pointed to his involvement in raping her non-consensually. Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyer, Stéphane Babonneau, dismissed all claims of complicity and said Gisèle would never have opened the doors of her home to those men and certainly never to their rape.
Years of drugging and abuse became a result of abusing that began in the year 2020, when Pelicot was apprehended while filming up women’s skirts in a supermarket. It had later emerged that Pelicot had recorded his rapes of the women and had, over almost nine years of the abuse, arranged this with men that he made acquaintance with while attending to an online chatroom by the name of “A Son Insu”, (Without Their Knowledge).
Gisèle Pelicot, 73, had the strength to waive her anonymity and demanded an open trial with media coverage while showing the videos in court to expose all the horror she had witnessed. Support has been widespread and particularly among feminist groups that have shown up outside the courthouse since the trial.
With the verdict nearing, the ways such pervasive abuse could happen leave people with more questions than answers of how society can help raped women. Feminist movements in France and Spain argued that there should be change within society in handling cases involving rape victims.
