French woman testifies against husband in mass rape case

He is accused of drugging her, letting dozens of men rape her over a decade

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If the sight of dozens of men accused of raping her, including her husband of many decades, upset Mrs Gisele Pelicot, she did not let it show.

She swept into a packed courtroom on Sept 5 with steely poise, her face composed, her eyes dry beneath sunglasses. Her adult children trailed behind her.

Then, she took the stand and told the court how the life she had built over five decades had quickly unravelled one morning in late 2020, when the police summoned her to a station in southern France.

There, they told her that the man she considered the love of her life had been drugging her for almost a decade and inviting strangers to come into their home and join him in raping her while she was comatose.

Under French rules, Mrs Pelicot, 71, could have avoided letting the trial play out in the public eye and chosen to keep it behind closed doors. Instead, she decided it was important for all of France to hear her story and to place the shame on the accused men, rather than on her.

"So when other women, if they wake up with no memory, they might remember the testimony of Mrs Pelicot," she said in a calm, controlled voice. "No woman should suffer from being drugged and victimised." She added: "We must address this scourge".

The trial in Avignon, which has just started and is scheduled to take four months, has already shaken France.

Everything about it seems almost too shocking to absorb - how long Dominique Pelicot is accused of drugging his wife, how ordinary and loving the couple seemed in their retirement, and how many men are accused of raping her.

There are so many men on trial that the court had to build a second glass box in the courtroom for those in custody.

The 51 men accused include firefighters, soldiers, lorry drivers and an information technology expert.

They range in age from 26 to 74.

Many are in stable relationships and have children.