Warning: This text contains descriptions of sexual violence.
At first glance, with its medieval city walls and charming alleyways, the French town of Avignon seems like normal French municipality. But the closer one draws to the courthouse, the more the fresh graffiti and posters demand attention: “Gisele, our sun,” “Gisele, our icon,” “Symbol of dignity and courage.”
Opposite the court, a banner that reads “Rape is rape” flutters in the wind. Gisele Pelicot’s decision to make the rape trial against her ex-husband Dominique Pelicot and 50 other alleged perpetrators public has rocked France, sparking protests and debate about violence against women— it has also made her a feminist icon far beyond Avignon.
Investigators have counted around 200 instances of rape in the case, most of them by Gisele Pelicot’s ex-husband and more than 90 by strangers after he secretly drugged her. She has said that for years she suffered unexplained memory and health problems, only discovering what had happened after her then-husband was arrested for filming up the skirts of women in a supermarket.
The last defendant takes the stand
Though filled to capacity, the courtroom is silent on Tuesday, November 19. So many people want to witness the victim’s final testimony that a second room has been opened for a video broadcast. Five judges sit on black chairs. Opposite the president of the Vaucluse Criminal Court in Avignon, Roger Arata isits the last defendent, Philippe L., a 62-year-old gardener.
Philippe L. rocks back and forth nervously. He doesn’t seem to know where to put his hands. From above, his bald spot shines through the crown of his hair. He denies having had any intention of raping Gisele Pelicot. He “only” penetrated her with his fingers, he says in a deep smoker’s voice. He illustrates the act with his hands and hips, moving his pelvis back and forth.
Listening to this account, one could get the impression that Philippe L. had merely arranged to meet Dominique Pelicot for a coffee date. He says he was looking for a “kinky woman” on the internet portal Coco, where he was contacted by Dominique Pelicot for a “trio.” They arranged to meet on the afternoon of June 7, 2018. First they had coffee and water, then Dominique Pelicot and Philippe L. watched videos in which Gisele is raped by her ex-husband and other men.
Dominique Pelicot filmed all of the rapes
In the bedroom of the couple’s home in Mazan in southwestern France, Pelicot told Philippe L. that his wife had taken sleeping pills and that the whole thing was part of a game. Philippe L. says that Pelicot then insisted that he penetrate his motionless wife. The court president reads out a description of the video of the alleged rape, a detailed account of what was done to Gisele Pelicot while she lay unconscious on her stomach. She can be heard snoring in the video.
“Out of politeness,” he then dressed himself and waited for Pelicot to finish raping his wife.
“You have a strange understanding of politeness,” says Stephane Babonneau, Gisele Pelicot’s lawyer. “You wait for Mr. Pelicot, yet can’t keep yourself in check?”
‘There is no right to be mistaken’
He did not act “as a man should act,” Philippe L. says. He didn’t think with his brain, but with his penis. He didn’t know that Gisele Pelicot was unconscious and could not give her consent. Philippe L. says this even though the chat room where the husband recruited him and the other men is called “à son insu,” meaning “without her knowledge.”
The lawyer wants to know whether it didn’t bother him that Gisele Pelicot was lying there motionless. Philippe L. rambles. He can neither be still nor formulate a clear sentence. He speaks in idioms: “Voilá, ehhh, je sais pas…comme ci, comme ça.” With his hand in his pocket, bobbing up and down, he finally says that he is sorry that things have unfortunately turned out this way.
Like most of the 50 co-defendants, Philippe L. pleads not guilty. He was not a rapist, but rather a victim of Dominique Pelicot’s system, according to the defense. So the around 200 rapes documented on video between 2011 and 2020 were all just mistakes made by men who didn’t know any better?
“If a man comes across an unconscious woman and decides to perform sexual acts on her without her consent, there is no right to be mistaken,” Gisele Pelicot’s lawyer says later in closing argument about this strategy.
‘They are all guilty’
Then Gisele Pelicot takes the witness stand for the last time since the trial began in September. She stands up straight with her head held high, her hands folded on the lectern. She says in a composed voice that she is tired today. She has heard things here that are unacceptable, men who deny raping her despite video evidence.
She wants to say to these men: “At what point did Mrs. Pelicot give you her consent when you entered the room?” Each of these men had the opportunity to go to the police. Even an anonymous tip could have saved her, she says. Dominique Pelicot and the men sitting behind her in the dock made a conscious decision to rape her, she says.
Gisele Pelicot does not believe that the codefendants were merely manipulated into committing these crimes. Even her ex-husband, who has confessed to the rapes, says that the codefendants are claiming this “to save themselves.”
But will such a strategy even be worth trying? In France, rape is defined as “any form of sexual penetration committed against another person using force, coercion, threat or surprise.” With the verdict expected by the end of December, many hope that it will not only bring about social change, but also a change in the law.
French Minister of Justice Didier Migaud could initiate such a change. He told the press that he was open to including “consent” in the legal definition of rape. Yet early this year, France, along with 14 member states that included Germany, rejected a European Union directive that would have introduced a standard definition of rape as sex without consent, without those affected having to prove violence or coercion, as is currently the case in France.
‘I want my grandchildren to be proud’
Gisele Pelicot hopes her trial will bring about social change. It is high time that France’s “patriarchal, macho society that trivializes rape” changes, the 71-year-old said in her final testimony.
In court, she has not called the man to whom she was married for over 50 years “Dominique,” but “Monsieur Pelicot.” Her children, she says, are now ashamed of this name. Her daughter, who has even assumed the pen name Caroline Darian, believes she was also assaulted by her father.
During the cross-examination, one of the lawyers asks Gisele Pelicot why she has kept her husband’s surname. There is silence in the courtroom as she answers calmly: “My name is now known all over the world. They should not be ashamed to bear this name. Today I want my grandchildren to be proud of their grandma. Today we remember Gisele Pelicot.”
This article was originally written in German.
