Gisèle Pelicot says she is 'honoured' to wear Australian solidarity scarf

Gisèle Pelicot, the French woman who has become a feminist hero after insisting that the rape trial of her ex-husband and 50 other men should be held in public, has said she was honoured to wear a scarf to court each day that was sent to her by an Australian organisation working to raise awareness of sexual assaults on older women.

- Angelique Chrisafis

“I’m very honoured to wear it,” Gisèle Pelicot said on leaving the court in Avignon, which has heard how her then husband, Dominique Pelicot, crushed sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication into her food and invited dozens of men to rape her over a nine-year period from 2011 to 2020 in the village of Mazan, in Provence.

Stéphane Babonneau, Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyer, said: “She was very touched to receive the scarf, and see that on the issue of violence against women, even in Australia on the other side of the world, women feel the same way, and that there is a connection that unites women across the world in standing up against violence against women, and particularly sexual violence.”

Yumi Lee of the Australian Older Women’s Network said she had sent the scarf in solidarity. “If we could be there, we would hold up placards with ‘We believe you, Gisèle’ and ‘You are our champion’ - that’s what we would write,” she said.