“We all know girls who have drunk a lot and been abused by men,” assures Marine. It is for them that this 29-year-old young woman decided to speak. One evening in 2021, she was gang raped by three men with whom she had been drinking heavily. His attackers didn’t use chemical submission, didn’t need to put pills in his drink. Heavily alcoholic, she was no longer able to react. Like other women, she was the victim of a common but little-publicized modus operandi: chemical vulnerability.
Summer 2021. South of France. Marine, is 26 years old and is on vacation when an acquaintance she met a few days earlier invites her to a party. “He sold me his project well: nice boys and girls, atmosphere, a jacuzzi. » The young man insists. Before accepting his proposal, Marine makes sure that she can sleep there or that someone can take her home after the evening.
“They took advantage of the fact that I was no longer lucid to push me to undress”
When the evening came, there was a nasty surprise: “it was not at all the evening that I had been sold. » She finds herself alone facing four men, aged 18 to 24. Having driven an hour, she accepts a drink to get to know each other. “They gave me something pretty strong, telling me it was that or nothing. » The discussion begins, the young woman relaxes, then they offer her a drinking game. “Once again, I didn’t see the harm. » The young men continually refill her glass, so that she does not realize the quantity of alcohol she has ingested. The gang then decides to go swimming. Marine is “really drunk”. “They took advantage of the fact that I was no longer lucid to push me to undress. » She refuses but “the damage was done”. “With the heat and the alcohol, I started to feel really bad and I don’t remember everything very well. »
This is where Marine’s long ordeal begins. A night punctuated by a series of rapes and sexual assaults. The young woman’s memories are blurry. It was during the investigation, then the trial, that she reconstructed the course of the evening, in particular thanks to videos taken by her attackers. Marine learns that there was a first penetration, of which she has no memory. “I just remember waking up and throwing up. » The men then carry the young woman to the bathroom. They wash it and “take advantage of it to touch [s] we body”. “I was barely conscious and the four of them were there, naked, masturbating while I was intermittently losing consciousness. »
Blurred memories
Marine is then transported to a bed. One of the four men rapes her. Then a second. Then a third. “I don’t know what happened after that. Either I tried to escape or they moved me, but I found myself naked in the living room, unconscious. » The young woman is once again the victim of sexual assault. At 6:30 a.m., they wake her up, take a car and take her home.
Three hours later, Marine wakes up and does not fully understand what happened to her. “I felt bad but I didn’t know if I had dreamed. And above all, I felt guilty. » The boy she was seeing that summer sent her a message, visibly “jealous and disappointed”: one of the attackers boasted of “a crazy night with a hell of a slut”. Marine receives this text like an electric shock. “That’s when I understood. They and I had not experienced the same evening. I was in trouble, thinking about my life and regretting, and they had had a damn good evening? I told him everything. He told me: “if what you say is true, you should file a complaint”. »
“She was the first to say ‘I believe you’ to me, and I will never forget those words”
When she can’t stop vomiting, Marine is taken to the police station. The doors are closed but if you insist, you let her in. As she begins to tell what happened to her, she bursts into tears. “The chief warrant officer was the first to tell me “I believe you” and I will never forget those words. They were the most important in my life. » The four gendarmes who received her were “hugely involved” and supported her “incredibly well”. “I was lucky because I know that this is not the case for all victims. »
The filing of a complaint lasts. Six grueling hours during which Marine tries to give as many details as possible. A flagrant investigation is opened, then everything happens very quickly. “It was extremely important to collect as much evidence as possible before they deleted it. » The attackers were arrested three days later, placed in police custody, then in pre-trial detention.
Sentences of one to six years in prison
During the long months of investigation, Marine suffered. She has suicidal thoughts, has difficulty leaving the house and continues to take sick leave. “I didn’t know if my memories had distorted reality or if what I remembered was real. » The investigating judge ended up showing him images taken on the evening of the events. Marine didn’t invent anything. On the contrary, she forgot part of it. Anger replaces doubt and guilt.
In May 2023, the “very tough” trial lasted five days. “They tried to make me look like the worst slut. The defense used truly despicable methods. » Marine, however, considers herself lucky because material evidence supported her version, while that of the accused had changed several times. The young woman learns that they had taken sexual stimulants the evening of the incident, before her arrival. “I fell into a well-prepared trap because they had already subjected another girl they knew to a similar scenario. Unfortunately, they managed to manipulate her into feeling guilty. »
“It’s not my place to be ashamed”
Among the four accused, three were prosecuted for gang rape, the last being tried for sexual assault. The first three received five to six years in prison, the last one a year in prison. “When I heard all the ‘yes’ to the guilty verdicts, it was an incredible relief. Justice believed me. »
Since that night which “turned everything upside down”, Marine has been trying to rebuild herself. She has just returned to work full-time, three years after the incident. If she believes she “still has a long way to go,” telling what happened to her helps her reclaim her story. “I try to talk about it as much as possible because it’s not my place to be ashamed. » Marine does not dwell on the subject either, “because people judge easily”. “I’m lucky to have won my case, so people believe me more. » But the young woman also thinks of all those who lost him, due to lack of proof. While the Mazan rape trial is still ongoing, Marine also wants to remind us: “a rapist is a person who has an opportunity and takes advantage of it, not a psychopath”.
