Having her husband sexually assaulted by strangers could break her. But by standing up to her abusers in court and seeking to shame them, France’s Gisele Pellicot has become a feminist champion.
More than three months of a sometimes grueling trial, including graphic video evidence, will conclude when the judge passes sentence on Thursday.
When the trial of her now ex-husband and 50 other defendants began in the French city of Avignon in September, reporters spotted a woman with short red hair hidden behind sunglasses.
The main victim in the case that shocked France was a grandmother whose partner admitted drugging her for almost a decade so he and dozens of strangers he recruited online could rape her while she was unconscious. Can.
But then Gisele Pellicotte waived her right to anonymity and demanded that the public be allowed access to the trial in order to raise awareness of drug use’s potential for abuse.
He won hearts throughout France and abroad and there was a flood of art in his honor when he said that it was his abusers – not them – who should be ashamed.
“I wanted all women who have been raped to say to themselves: ‘Mrs Pellicott did it, so we can do it too’,” she told the court in October.
Referring to the criminals, he said, “Shame should not be felt by us, but by them.”
As news of the trial spread, protests broke out across France to show support and fans began cheering her or even greeted her with flowers when she arrived at the court.
And during the trial, Giselle Pellicote took off her black sunglasses.
‘Rape is rape’
Ahead of the verdict, the 72-year-old has featured on the BBC’s 100 Women for 2024 list alongside fellow gang rape victim and Nobel laureate Nadia Murad and Hollywood actor Sharon Stone.
Pellicott divorced her husband in August, who confessed to the abuse after carefully documenting it with photos and videos.
She has moved away from the southern city of Mazan, where, in her own words, her husband Dominique Pellicot treated her for years like a “piece of meat” or a “rag doll”.
She now uses her maiden name, but during the trial she asked the media to use her former name as a married woman – which was given to some of her seven grandchildren.
In mid-September, she left her usual reserve to talk about her humiliation and her anger toward several lawyers who had made insinuations about her ordeal.
“Rape is rape,” he said.
In October, she said she was “broken” but determined to change society.
He told the court again last month that the time had come that the “masculine, patriarchal” society should change its attitude towards rape.
He said the marathon hearings were a test of the “cowardice” of those who took part in the attacks.
Many had argued that they felt they were participating in a couple’s fantasy after consenting by proxy through their husbands.
She expressed anger that none of her abusers alerted police about the rapes that occurred between 2011 and 2020.
Many participated in the abuse up to six times.
Fifty people are on trial in addition to her 72-year-old ex-husband, including a man who not only raped Gisele Pellicott, but repeatedly abused his own wife with the help of Dominique Pellicott.
Several co-defendants have admitted rape.
But more than 20 other suspects are still at large because investigators did not manage to identify them before the mass trial began.
memory fades
The daughter of an army member, Gisele Pellicot was born in Germany on December 7, 1952, returning to France with her family when she was five.
When she was nine years old, her mother, aged just 35, died of cancer.
His older brother Michel died of a heart attack at the age of 43, before his 20th birthday.
She met her future husband and rapist, Dominique Pellicote, in 1971.
She dreamed of becoming a hairdresser but studied to become a typist. After a few years of disappointment, she joined EDF, France’s national electricity company, and ended her career in logistics service for its nuclear power plants.
At home, she cared for her three children and then seven grandchildren.
After retiring, he enjoyed traveling and singing in local choirs.
It was only when police caught her husband filming women’s skirts in a supermarket in 2020 that she discovered the real reason behind his troubling memory loss.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
