It's Gisèle who will be remembered' Supporters rally outside Pelicot trial

Supporters rally outside Pelicot trial

- Angelique Chrisafis

When Gisèle Pelicot left the courtroom of France's biggest mass-rape trial this week, she was met with applause from more than a hundred women. Pelicot, whose husband drugged her and invited dozens of strangers into her bedroom to rape her for a decade, thanked her supporters, putting a hand to her heart.

She would, she told the court, now go for a walk. "I heal by hours and hours of walking — it's a way to protect myself. That and my psychologist, music and chocolate. Everyone has their own therapy for suffering."

A total of 51 men are on trial for more than 200 rapes of Gisèle Pelicot between 2011 and 2020 in the village of Mazan in Provence. Her then-husband, Dominique Pelicot, crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into her food and drink, inviting men he met online to rape her while she was unconscious.

Dominique Pelicot has admitted the charges, telling the court: "I am a rapist." Only 14 men on trial have admitted to rape — "I was your torturer," a former record shop worker from Avignon told Gisèle in court, saying he had raped her "out of curiosity."

Most of the men, aged 26 to 74, have denied rape, saying they had not "intended" to do it, despite video evidence that shows them in her bedroom as she lies unconscious and snoring loudly.

Gisèle Pelicot, 72, a former logistics manager and grandmother of seven, has become a feminist hero after insisting that the trial be held in public to raise awareness of drug-induced rape and abuse. "It's not for us to have shame, it's for them," she has said.