This is his last speech on the stand. Gisèle Pelicot estimated this Tuesday that the Mazan rape trial is one of “cowardice” and declared that it was time for society to “change its outlook” on rape. This declaration comes the day after the hearing of the couple's three children and after that of the 51 accused in this extraordinary case.
For eleven weeks, 50 men have been on trial alongside Dominique Pelicot, accused of having drugged his ex-wife, raped her and had her raped by strangers recruited on the Internet. As the Mazan rape trial enters its final stretch, Gisèle Pelicot spoke one last time, this Tuesday. “For me, this trial will be the trial of cowardice. It is high time that the macho, patriarchal society, which trivializes rape, changes. It is time that we change the way we look at rape,” insisted the septuagenarian.
“How could he betray me so much? »
On September 5, on the fourth day of the trial, Gisèle Pelicot spoke for the first time, claiming to have been “sacrificed on the altar of vice”. She explained that she was testifying for “all these women who undergo chemical submission”. “The day a woman gets up and doesn't remember what she did the day before, she will say to herself: hey, I heard Madame Pelicot's testimony,” she said on the stand, before summarize: “The facade is solid, but the interior is a field of ruins”.
On October 23, halfway through the trial, she was invited to speak again. For the first time, she spoke directly to her ex-husband: “How could he betray me so much? How were you able to bring individuals into my bedroom? You knew my aversion to swinging,” she asked the man with whom she lived for fifty years.
“We had three children, seven grandchildren. (…) How could he betray me to this extent? », she asked herself. “And I will tell him: I have always tried to pull you upwards, towards the light. You have chosen the depths of the human soul,” said Gisèle Pelicot.
“You were the devil himself”
On Monday, it was the couple's three children who took the stand, urging Dominique Pelicot to tell everything about possible abuse within the family, particularly about his daughter Caroline. They also asked the accused to take responsibility for their actions.
Florian, David and Caroline also looked back on the explosion that this decade of rapes orchestrated against their mother by their father was for them. “For me, (this Mazan rape trial) is the trial of an entire family, which has been totally destroyed,” said the eldest of the siblings, David, 50, in a firm tone. “If you still have a little humanity left, you hear? (I would like) you to tell the truth about the actions you had on my sister, who suffers every day and who will suffer all her life, because I think you will never tell the truth! “, he continued. “You said (of our mother) that she was a saint, but you were the devil himself,” Florian then told his father, taking over from his elder at the helm.
Caroline presented herself as “the great forgotten one” of the trial. “Gisèle was chemically raped, but the only difference between her and me is the lack of evidence against me. For me, it’s an absolute tragedy,” she explained. On the files stored on Dominique Pelicot's computer, investigators discovered images of Caroline naked, taken without her knowledge.
Dominique Pelicot will also have the floor one last time, this Tuesday afternoon, before the start of the pleadings, probably Wednesday morning.
