“We had the Jewish cemetery of Carpentras, now we have the rapes of Mazan, all that remains is to live Mormoiron to be peaceful…” quips a young man, sitting on the terrace of a café in the Vaucluse village where Dominique lived Pelicot, tried with 50 co-defendants for drugging and raping his wife and having her raped by dozens of men recruited on the Internet over ten years.
In this Provençal village of 6,500 inhabitants established at the foot of Mont Ventoux, the so-called “Mazan rapes” affair inevitably has a strong impact. “What I especially regret is that we called it “the rapes of Mazan”, when they are “the rapes of Dominique Pelicot””, we continue on the terrace shaded by two old and massive plane trees.
Since the affair broke out in September 2020, shortly after the septuagenarian was caught by a security guard filming under women's skirts in a hypermarket, and even more since the trial opened in Avignon in September this year, the press rushed to the village.
“Honestly, it’s Disneyland”
“We had the BBC, CNN, Spanish television, and so on,” annoys the captain who went to the Avignon court to see a little of the ongoing trial. “Frankly, it’s Disneyland,” he says, referring to the media circus, “to the applause” of support for Giselle Pelicot every morning and evening of the hearing. And if “at the beginning everyone was talking about the affair, things have calmed down a little now,” he notes. “What more is there to say?” “, asks a bar companion who finishes emptying his half before answering: “We'll wait for the sentences to be handed down and that's it. »
And on the business side, “the Mazan rape affair” doesn’t really help business. “Before Mazan was a very sought-after village,” says a real estate agent. “But today, I notice that for two similar houses, one located in Mazan and another in a neighboring village, we receive many more calls for the second, unlike before. » Added to this is “an apprehension to say that a property is located in Mazan when we call clients for a property that corresponds to their searches”, she adds, preferring to remain anonymous.
A “heavy” atmosphere
An anonymity that Claudette, 73, makes fun of. It must be said, she is not from Mazan and is the age of Gisèle Pelicot. With cellophane on her hair wrapped in algae, Claudette gives the change from the chair of her daughter's hair salon located in Mazan. “We were just talking about the fifty others, not one of whom went to the police,” explains the septuagenarian whose granddaughter went to court to show her support for Gisèle.
“We must salute the courage of this lady, who doubly exposed herself for us, for society. What this trial shows is that people of all categories were involved in this and that we live surrounded by sick people. It’s scary for our children, our grandchildren,” Claudette continues. Elsewhere in Mazan, we prefer not to talk about it too much: “No thank you,” says a shopkeeper. A second: “My job is to sell, not to talk.” » “They weren't really village people after all,” a third person prefers to say, since the Pelicots lived in the Paris region until the beginning of the 2000s.
Our file on the rapes in Mazan
The fact remains that among younger people the affair of the Mazan rapes, if it does not occupy all the conversations, certainly occupies the minds. “It hovers above the village and the atmosphere has been heavy ever since,” says a thirty-year-old who has lived here all her life. “And sometimes, we wonder who we are really talking to,” she concludes while at least twenty men who went to Dominique Pelicot’s home could not be identified.
Related News :