I'm saying 'Ladies we still have a right to happiness'

Gisele Pelicot on finding love after her rape horror by her husband and becoming an icon

- By Emma McKenzie and Fran Bowden

SEVENTY-THREE-YEAR-OLD Gisele Pelicot became a beacon of hope for abuse victims the world over when she waived her anonymity and stoically went to court to face the 51 men who raped her.

Now that beacon is shining brightly again, with the revelation that she has found love. With perfectly chosen words, the petite Frenchwoman, with her enormous courage, says she has given herself permission to be happy.

Her partner is widower and retired Air France steward Jean-Loup, who she met through mutual friends in June 2023, after she moved to Ile de Ré in Western France. He had cared for his wife until her death a few months earlier, following a long illness, and he and Gisele both had French bulldogs and shared the same taste in music.

"If anyone told me that I'd find love at this age, I'd never have believed it," Gisele tells British Vogue magazine.

With the defiance that won admiration from people across the globe, she adds: "I'm saying, 'No, ladies, we still have a right to happiness'. I am proof that anything is possible."

Jean-Loup accompanied her to the 2024 trial in Avignon of her now ex-husband Dominique Pelicot, 73, and 50 men accused of her rape, attempted rape or sexual assault.

The attacks happened after Pelicot had drugged her unconscious at home in Mazan, South East France, from July 2011 to October 2020.