As Gisèle Pelicot walked down the steps of the Avignon courthouse at the end of the biggest rape trial in French history, hundreds of supporters who had travelled from across France and Europe burst into cheers and applause, chanting: “Thank you, Gisèle.”
Others stood with placards that read “shame has changed sides” in honour of her words, back in October, to explain why she was waiving her anonymity and facing down her rapists in court: “It’s not for us to have shame,” she said then. “It’s for them.”
On Thursday, as the court handed down its verdicts and sentences in the trial of her ex-husband and 50 other men, the walls of the southern French city were plastered in posters saying “Women united with Gisèle” and “Thanks for your bravery”.
The 72-year-old former logistics manager and grandmother of seven became a feminist hero worldwide after insisting that the rape trial be held in public. Over a period of almost a decade, her then husband had crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into her food and drink and invited dozens of men to rape her while she was unconscious in her bed in the village of Mazan, in Provence. Most of the accused denied rape, saying they had thought it was a game or that her husband had given consent on her behalf.
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Inside the courtroom on Thursday, the 51 accused men, aged between 26 and 74, who included a soldier, a fire officer, a nurse, a journalist and a prison warden, sat with their heads lowered in silence as the head judge read out the verdicts. Every single man was found guilty of at least one charge – 47 of rape, two of attempted rape and two of sexual assault. Some of the men wept and reached for tissues. Some of their family members also began crying, including the mother of a painter and decorator who had raped Gisèle Pelicot in her bed when he was 24 and she was 65.
Dominique Pelicot hung his head and wept, too, when he was handed a maximum sentence of 20 years, but a roar of cheers erupted from members of the public waiting outside the criminal court as they heard the news.
Pelicot’s co-defendants received jail terms of between three and 15 years. Some of the sentences were significantly lower than the public prosecutor had recommended and several women outside in the street shouted: “Shame on the justice system!”
One defence lawyer exited the courthouse calling the women protesting outside “hysterical” and “tricoteuses” – likening them to the women who watched and knitted as the guillotine fell during the French Revolution. Daphné (42), a writer from Montpellier, was appalled by the comment. “That shows that this is just the first step in a battle, and the battle goes on. There’s a real denial in society of male violence against women,” she said.
Most of the men were led away by police to begin prison sentences. The few whose sentences were suspended left the courthouse to jeers as the crowd hissed and booed.
Amid the frenzy, a calm and softly spoken Gisèle Pelicot emerged from the courtroom flanked by her grandson and other family members to read a prepared statement to hundreds of journalists crowding around her. She said the four-month trial had been a “difficult ordeal” but she had led this struggle for her children and grandchildren “because they are the future”. She said her thoughts were with all the female victims who were “not recognised”, whose stories stayed in the shadows. She said: “I want you to know we share the same fight.”
Gisèle Pelicot had received and read scores of testimonies and letters sent from women around the world during the trial and had arrived for the verdict wearing a silk scarf sent to her as a gesture of solidarity by an Australian organisation working to raise awareness of sexual assaults on older women. She thanked everyone who had supported her. “Your testimony has deeply moved me and I’ve drawn from it the strength to come back each day to attend this long trial,” she said.
“When I opened the doors to this trial on September 2nd, I wanted society to be able to take part in this debate. I have never regretted that decision,” she continued. “I have confidence in our ability to collectively grasp a future in which everyone, women and men alike, can live in harmony, with mutual respect and understanding.”
Outside the court, holding a protest placard about the low number of rape convictions in France, Vigdis, who runs an organisation providing free support to domestic violence survivors, said: “This is a historic moment. Gisèle Pelicot has opened people’s eyes to the fact that a rapist can be someone who on the outside looks like a good dad and head of the family, not necessarily a monster met in the street. These men are everywhere and society shapes them. Gisèle Pelicot represents hope. She has shown what can happen behind a closed bedroom door within the family.”
Over the course of the trial and its shocking video evidence, Gisèle Pelicot had said that during the more than 200 rapes she was subjected to, she was “sacrificed on the altar of vice” by men who saw her “as a rag doll, like a garbage bag”.
After the verdict she left the court, head held high to cheers, as supporters called her inspirational. She had told the court during the trial: “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.”
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