The inhabitants of Mazan fear that the name of their village will be forever associated with the case of rapes committed and organized by Dominique Pelicot on his wife using chemical submission. After three and a half months of media overexposure, they aspire to return to a calmer life
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On the eve of the verdict, the people of Mazan aspire to regain their peace. Since the start of the trial of Dominique Pélicot and the 50 co-defendants, many residents have suffered from seeing the name of their municipality definitively associated with the case. “Why not say the Pelicot affair instead of the Mazan rapes. Always Mazan! It doesn’t make a good name for the village,” deplores a resident.
>> “It’s a notoriety that we would have done without”: the village of Mazan, between astonishment and exasperation
“We associate the name of our municipality with these behaviors, adds mayor without label Louis Bonnet. We were told to write to the media to change this… But once the blow goes off, there’s no going back. The town was not prepared for this and the scale it was going to take on an international level.”
Louis Bonnet, mayor without label of Mazan, wants to turn the page and fears that his village will be forever marked by this affair.
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© Frédéric Roche / France Télévisions
“This matter comes from someone who is not from the village, exclaims Bertrand, who regularly encountered Dominique Pelicot at the tennis club, it brings opprobrium to the whole village. As soon as we leave Mazan, we are questioned, it fell on us like that…
“He was passing by the tennis club on a bicycle with a basket and the little cat in it. I rubbed shoulders with one of the greatest criminals in the history of France.”
Bertrand Ferrari, resident of Mazanat France 3 Paca
For weeks, this village at the foot of Ventoux saw dozens of journalists, cameras and microphones in hand, roaming the village and questioning the inhabitants. Rather painful in the long run. “There were often three film crews circulating in the villagesays the mayor. At first, we responded, then we stopped, the traders and residents had had enough…”
The elected official also returns to the contexts of his controversial and inappropriate remarks, in September on the BBC. He then declared : “It could have been worse, there were no children involved, no women died. It will be difficult for the family, but they will be able to rebuild their lives. After all, no one died“.
Words that Louis Bonnet quickly regretted. “It was in a neighboring villagehe said this Wednesday. I was chased a bit by journalists. They retained a sentence that I should not have said. ÇIt struck me because I was threatened.“
The mayor is impatient for us to forget Mazan and this atrocious affair a little: “We want to turn the page. Here, there are festivities, a Christmas market last weekend with the children and Santa Claus, agricultural products, it’s village life.”
The councilor, however, fears that Mazan will suffer the same fate as Carpentras, after the affair of the desecration of the Jewish cemetery. “Carpentras, we’re still talking about it and it must have been at least 30 years (the case dates from 1990, editor’s note). “We will no longer have tourists, but we will always have cyclists, hopes Claudine, another fatalistic resident, but convinced that Mazan is still “a very beautiful village.”
Article written with Samia Boujamaa, journalist at France 3 Provence-Alpes
