A victim, Gisèle Pelicot, who became a feminist icon throughout the world, her tormentors, around fifty “everyday gentlemen”, and a social debate on male/female relationships: the Mazan serial rape trial, including the verdict is expected Thursday in the south-east of France, has already made history.
• Also read: Serial rape trial in France: a “destroyed” family in the fight against “the unbearable”
• Also read: Gisèle Pelicot as “personality of the year” of “TIME” magazine (instead of Trump): a viral photo montage on the networks
Tried since September 2 before the criminal court of Vaucluse, in Avignon, this case is extraordinary in terms of its duration, the number of accused, but above all the atrocity of the alleged facts: a husband who drugged his wife, for a decade, to rape her and have her raped by dozens of strangers recruited on the Internet.
“THE” political gesture: the refusal of closed doors
From the first day, in an eminently political gesture, Gisèle Pelicot, 72, made an impression by refusing the closed session, against the advice of the prosecution and several defense lawyers, who refused “a spectacle”.
So that “the shame changes sides, so that all women victims of rape say to themselves ‘Mrs. Pelicot did it, we can do it'”, explains the person concerned.
The trial then enters another dimension, on mondovision, with 166 accredited media, including 76 foreigners. Social networks are going crazy, politicians, lawyers and intellectuals are taking positions. This case becomes emblematic of the scourge of sexual violence, chemical submission and the question of consent.
Gisèle Pelicot, the birth of an icon
Three days later, Gisèle Pelicot, her three children and her seven grandchildren officially renounce their anonymity: Gisèle P., as she was still presented in the media – including AFP -, becomes Gisèle Pelicot. “We will remember Madame Pelicot, not Monsieur. I want my grandchildren not to be ashamed of having this name,” she explains.
Anonymous and discreet arrival, hidden behind smoked sunglasses, the septuagenarian gradually assumes her new status as feminist muse. But if “the facade is solid, the interior is a field of ruins,” she recalls.
Every day, she is greeted by a guard of honor and receives bouquets of flowers. The public, who flocked to an adjoining room to follow the debates on the big screen, expressed their admiration. She greets with a little smile or a little word and calls on women “to stop being silent.”
AFP
Transformed into a pop icon, Gisèle Pelicot sees her image, red hair and round glasses, flourishing on walls, in France and abroad. The American press hails her bob cut “à la Anna Wintour”, high priestess of fashion.
“Heroine for women all over the world”, according to the German weekly Der Spiegel, “feminist heroine” for the New York TimesGisèle Pelicot is included by the BBC in its ranking of the 100 most influential women in the world.
A “conductor” relegated to the shadows
When the trial opened, Dominique Pelicot was still the central character, the “conductor” of the rapes against his wife, at their marital home in Mazan. But, ironically, the one who explains having wanted to “subdue a rebellious woman” finds himself little by little relegated to the shadow of the woman from whom he is now officially divorced.
Photo AFP
In the first days, Dominique Pelicot’s failing state of health cast doubt on his ability to appear. A postponement of the trial is even mentioned. But, after a short hospitalization, the 72-year-old man returned to his place in his glass box.
In a nonchalant and obsequious voice, legs crossed, the septuagenarian reveals his truth, charging his 50 co-defendants, aged 27 to 74: “all knew” that his wife was sedated and that therefore “it was rape », he asserts, wanting not to fall alone.
But he refuses to answer embarrassing questions and he lowers his head when his videos of the rapes are broadcast, even to the point of covering his ears so as not to hear his own filthy comments or the choking of his wife. When the maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment was requested against him, he did not react.
The videos are on trial
Extremely rare in rape trials, thousands of photos and videos prove the ordeal experienced by Gisèle Pelicot. Taken by her ex-husband, they had been carefully stored and captioned by the latter. “For safety,” he will say, cryptically, at the hearing.
AFP
Thanks to this material evidence, the victim’s word cannot be equated with that of her attackers. But should they be broadcast and allow the presence of the press and the public, when the defense denounces “judicial voyeurism”?
Considering these images “indecent and shocking”, the president of the court, Roger Arata, first decided to reserve them for the main courtroom and the press. Gisèle Pelicot only wishes that her children would not watch them.
Then, on September 20, the magistrate even excluded the media from these broadcasts.
“We must have the courage to confront” the reality of rape, retort the victim’s lawyers, who will ultimately win their case.
On October 4, Mr. Arata again authorized the broadcast of the images in the presence of the public and the press. A “victory” for Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyers, “nauseating projections” according to those of the defense.
An indictment “for future generations”
Discreet until then, the two attorneys general struck a major blow at the end of November. After two and a half days of requisitions, they demanded the conviction of the 51 accused and a total of 652 years of imprisonment: between 10 and 18 years behind bars for 49 of them, the maximum possible sentence of 20 years for Dominique Pelicot.
The future verdict will constitute “a message of hope to victims of sexual violence,” assures vice-prosecutor Laure Chabaud, but also a guide “in the education of our sons, because it is through education that the impetus will be change” for “collective, societal awareness”.
AFP
For the prosecution, this “testament for future generations” will return “a part of her humanity stolen from Gisèle Pelicot” and will follow in the footsteps of another Gisèle very famous in France, Me Gisèle Halimi, the lawyer who made it possible, in 1978, to have rape recognized as a crime.
Defense on a ridge line
“Devil’s Advocate”, “alone in front of the world”, Me Béatrice Zavarro tried, in her pleading, to highlight “the other Dominique”, the “good husband, father and grandfather”, whose plunge into “perversity” would have been caused in particular by a rape suffered at the age nine.
For the lawyers of Dominique Pelicot’s 50 co-defendants, the task was just as difficult. “It’s very hard for us to speak, because we have a civil party who is an icon and any words are an attack on women,” summarized Me Nadia El Bouroumi.
Like her, around thirty of her colleagues “dared the taboo word, acquittal”, denouncing the “axe” requisitions of the public prosecutor. Refusing a verdict “for history”, “to change society”, or that this trial is “that of patriarchy and even less of chemical submission”, they warned against a “judicial error”.
An argument came up frequently: these men were “manipulated”, “fooled” by “the monster”, “the ogre” Dominique Pelicot, who allegedly made them believe in the scenario of a libertine couple where his wife pretended to be sleeping . The actions of their clients would have been carried out “reluctantly”, “out of fear”, “to please”, by “error of judgment”, or even “by accident”.
Caroline, “forgotten” victim?
Also photographed naked, asleep, without her knowledge, photos posted on social networks, was Caroline, the daughter of the Pelicot couple, also raped by the man she only calls her “progenitor”?
AFP
“I am the one most forgotten in this trial,” she was indignant in mid-November, convinced that she had also been drugged and raped by her father, like her mother: “the only difference between her and me is is the lack of evidence,” explains the woman who is trying “to rebuild herself” by getting involved in particular within her association that helps victims of chemical submission.
In a violent face-to-face confrontation, she calls on her father to “tell the truth”.
“Caroline, I never did anything to you,” he replies, immediately cut off by his daughter.
“You will die a lie!” Alone, alone in the lie, Dominique Pelicot!”
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