“This is the first time that I have followed a trial so closely: I immersed myself in it as if I were there.” From Nancy where she lives, Chloé has had her eyes fixed on Avignon since September 2. She follows the trial mainly via live-tweets on X, to have as many details as possible. “I went through a bit of all the emotions”confides this medical secretary. Certain comments made in the courtroom put her beside herself, notably when one of the accused suspected Gisèle Pelicot of being an accomplice of her husband. “I imagined how she might feel hearing some of these horrors”reports the 31-year-old young woman. The pain of the septuagenarian is familiar to her: Chloé was raped when she was 18 by a friend of her partner at the time.
After that, shame invaded her. Self-loathing too. “I got it into my head that I was a piece of meat: I was treated like that, so it’s my fault”she describes, relating “a descent into hell at the level of [sa] sexuality”. For ten years, she accepted everything from men. “They took me, let me go. I said to myself: ‘It’s normal, it’s my condition’.” Until she met her partner, who was also raped by his superior in the fire department when he was younger. “We live with this trauma, without daring to talk about it to those around us”she confides.
Despite the weight of silence, Chloé learns to love herself again. And the Mazan rape trial, through the woman who embodies it in the eyes of the whole world, acted as a trigger in its reconstruction. “Seeing Gisèle so strong, seeing that she doesn’t feel guilty: it gives me back faith in myself. I tell myself that I’m not guilty,” declares the Nancy woman in a confident voice. And to add: “I am extremely proud that a woman like her can represent people who have been victims of rape.”
Like Chloé, many of them responded to our call for testimonies, to share their feelings about the Mazan rape trial, already announced as historic. The verdict is imminent, Thursday December 19, after fourteen weeks of hearings, relayed worldwide. While it is still difficult to measure its impact, one thing is certain: among victims of sexual violence, the journey of Gisèle Pelicot upsets them to their very core.
“From the moment I saw this woman on television, I wanted to hold her in my arms,” says Marie, who remembers immediately “felt close” by Gisèle Pelicot. And for good reason: this 74-year-old former switchboard operator is only two years older than the victim in this trial. And a life marked by sexual violence. At the age of 19, she escaped at the last minute from a man who offered to take her back by car, even though she had just buried her fiancé. “I make him believe that I have syphilis, that saves me: he lets me go”she says.
Four years later, Marie is 23 years old and this time, she cannot escape. The owner of a bar she regularly frequented raped her when he took her home, insulting her “slut” and telling him that she “pays for everyone else”. At 27, she woke up in full aggression, after having shared two glasses of wine with a famous singer of the time, whom she met while she was a hostess on a national radio station. “I was paralyzed: my body no longer responded”she remembers, certain of having been the victim of chemical submission, at a time when the term did not exist.
Marie did not file a complaint against any of these men, fearing she would not be believed. The septuagenarian still lives with “the emotional aftereffects” of these attacks which “sali” the relationships she subsequently had with men. The Mazan rape trial revives bad memories. But not only that. There “extraordinary resilience” by Gisèle Pelicot “soothes” the retiree.
“Her strength allows women like me to repair ourselves, when we couldn’t speak up, couldn’t defend ourselves… I feel like I’m fighting with and for her.”
Marie, victim of rapeat franceinfo
Julie also feels “a catharsis effect” through the massive impact of this trial. And in particular the famous formula: “Shame must change sides” pronounced by Stéphane Babonneau, Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyer. “Feminists have been brandishing this phrase for years, but it never had the opportunity to really take shape and spread in society: the sounding board was missing”observes this 41-year-old development manager. “This time it works!” she rejoices.
Victim of incest by her brother from the age of 8 to 12, Julie began talking about it at 30. And the shock wave caused at the start of 2021 by Camille Kouchner’s work, The big familycompletes the liberation of his word. “I posted a photo of myself as a little girl, mentioning my story: I was surprised to have no judgment, to receive only warm comments. It made me realize that I was still ashamed, almost thirty years latersays the forty-year-old.
“Shame is diffuse, like a magma, something that we cannot visualize. We are not necessarily aware that we carry it around, but it is always with us.”
Julie, victim of incestat franceinfo
She understands “rage” by Caroline Darian, the daughter of the Pelicot couple, convinced of having been a victim of her father, who considers himself “the great forgotten one of this trial”. “She’s right”, decides Julie, who believes that the two naked photos of her should be enough to establish her victim status. “This trial illustrates a classic functioning of incest: everything is there, but we turn a blind eye”she regrets.
Julie filed a complaint seven years ago now. The investigation is at a standstill. But she hopes to one day walk through the doors of a court of law to seek redress. She says “get inspired” by Gisèle Pelicot to tackle this ordeal. “Will I refuse to go behind closed doors? Will I, like her, go with my head held high? Will I remain straight at the bar?” she asks herself, hoping to have “his determination”.
At Anaïs, it’s more “vulnerability” of the septuagenarian who echoes her personal story. The question of consent, central to this trial, particularly affects her. Her former boyfriend overstepped hers for five years, forcing her to have sex with him whenever he asked. Weakened by years of school harassment, the 26-year-old young woman lived in terror of this young man, who also physically abused her.
His trauma is still raw: simply reading the court reports is sometimes unbearable for him. Anaïs was however “optimistic” at the opening of the trial, not seeing “what could be said about Gisèle Pelicot, who appears to be the perfect victim”based on the extensive video evidence in his possession. This psychology graduate was “terrified” to discover the questions that were sometimes asked of him by the defense.
Emilie shares her astonishment at “violence” of the retiree’s legal journey: she does not understand “how does Gisèle Pelicot manage to be present at the hearing every day”. His decision to agree to make the trial public constitutes “a sacrificial gesture towards all the victims”, estimates this 44-year-old musician.
“She has become a symbol, while the reality of what she experiences is prosaic and extremely brutal.”
Emilie, victim of rapeat franceinfo
Which is not unlike reminding her of her own, since Emilie filed a complaint for rape in November 2022 against the programmer of a festival who had invited her to perform. At the police station, she was asked how she was dressed that day. “The police took two years to question three witnesses, including an ex-boyfriend, to whom I had not spoken for nine years”relate-t-elle. “At home, it’s anger that dominates”she blurted out, also identifying with Caroline Darian.
For Marie-Hélène, this feeling “decanted”. At the age of 63, this “addicted to the news” assiduously follows the trial. And appears quite disillusioned. “We realize that rape is a widespread problem in our society, that makes me laugh,” launches this IT executive, sexually assaulted by her grandfather at 7 years old, by her brother at 10 years old and raped by a stranger at 18 years old. “Not counting the exhibitionists in their cars, when I was hitchhiking”she adds. The sixty-year-old long believed that she was “an exception” at a time when “we talked less”.
“I thought I had come across the wrong people. This trial demonstrates the fact that rape is a mass phenomenon.”
Marie-Hélèneat franceinfo
She fails to experience the slightest “empathy” towards the accused, after having closely followed their interrogations. “It didn’t occur to them to think that this thing in the bed was a human”she exclaims, still stunned by the statement of Christian L., who said at the hearing: “It’s not me in the videos, it’s my body, but not my brain.”
Marie-Hélène believes that the media coverage of this affair “will move the lines, but only for certain people”. She regrets that many men around her, “who nevertheless present themselves as feminists”perceive the 51 accused as “sick people”. “That means they didn’t understand anything!” she laments. Léa also finds “very dangerous” to consider that these acts are the fact “of isolated people”.
“It is not a problem of individuals, but of masculinity: it is the way in which we educate men that poses a problem, the fact that they see themselves as dominant in society.”
Léa, victim of incestat franceinfo
This 24-year-old video editor is sorry that popular culture represents sexual violence as necessarily associated “to coercion, with women being beaten so that the attacker can get what he wants”. Gisèle Pelicot, unconsciously raped dozens and dozens of times, “was not hit, but that in no way takes away from the incredible violence of what she experienced”underlines Léa, victim of incest by a member of her family, from 4 to 8 years old. She hopes the accused will get the punishment “with the greatest possible punishment” pour “the inhumane acts that they inflicted on Gisèle Pelicot”.
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