the essential
A victim, Gisèle Pelicot, who has become an international feminist icon, her tormentors, around fifty “everyday gentlemen”, who could all end up in prison, and a social debate on the relationships between men and women: the rape trial de Mazan, whose verdict is expected on Thursday, has already made history.
Only an immense act of courage could respond to the horror of crimes committed over a decade; only a fierce determination to ensure that shame changes sides could shake up French society where an unbearable culture of rape persisted and still persists. Gisèle Pelicot dared this act of incredible courage, she, the victim whose husband Dominique drugged her for ten years and had her raped by dozens of men in their house in Mazan.
From the first day of this extraordinary trial at the Vaucluse criminal court, in Avignon on September 2, before which 50 men and her husband Dominique appeared, Gisèle Pelicot – a fine, dignified figure, sunglasses and an impeccable auburn bob – decided to refuse the closed session. Through this eminently political gesture that the Prosecutor’s Office and several defense lawyers advised her not to make, Gisèle Pelicot left her mark and acquired the status of feminist icon in France and throughout the world – her face became a symbol of the struggles against gender-based and sexual violence. Refuse the closed session? So that “shame changes sides”, “so that all women victims of rape say Madame Pelicot did it, we can do it “, she explains.
See rape in the face
The publicity of the debates and therefore the viewing of the videos of the rapes, which Dominique Pelicot took meticulously, seemed to unlock something. See the horror of rape face to face, however distressing the images may be – many journalists have testified to this -, see this sort of “banality of evil” that the philosopher Hannah Arendt spoke of, because Gisèle Pelicot’s executioners, hooded and masked on their benches, were “everyman”.
AFP
The absence of a closed session obviously shifted the trial into another dimension. There were the court hearings, which attracted a large audience every day, community activists who made a guard of honor for Gisèle Pelicot during her arrivals and departures, and media from around the world – 166 accredited, including 76 foreigners.
But the trial continued outside the courtroom, questioning the entire society. Social networks were excited about this affair. Politicians, lawyers and intellectuals took positions in the press and on television. The Pelicot affair has thus become emblematic of the scourge of sexual violence, of chemical submission which is still too little known, particularly among couples, or even of the question of consent, the inclusion of which in French law is debated.
There have been some columnists locked in a masculinist denial of another time and always quick to find excuses for rapists. On social networks, these and others have tried to establish the idea that not all men are rapists (#Notallmen). Certainly, but all rapists are indeed men in a patriarchal society and these nauseating arguments have been swept aside by the very broad awareness of a majority of men.
“We will remember Madame Pelicot, not Monsieur”
The refusal to go behind closed doors places Gisèle Pelicot at the center of the trial, but also her three children and her seven grandchildren who then officially renounce their anonymity in the name of a cause greater than themselves. “We will remember Madame Pelicot, not the gentleman. I want my grandchildren not to be ashamed of having this name,” explains the woman many call Gisèle.
With complete restraint, the septuagenarian, who stands up at each hearing in front of the accused, gradually assumes her new status as feminist muse. But if “the facade is solid, the interior is a field of ruins,” she confides. “Heroine for women around the world”, according to the German weekly The mirror“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.
AFP
Throughout the hearings, in a nonchalant and obsequious voice, Dominique Pelicot reveals his truth, charging his 50 co-defendants, aged between 27 and 74: “all knew” that his wife was sedated and that therefore “it was a question of rape,” he asserts, wanting not to fall alone. The co-defendants with profiles so diverse, so banal, get lost in confusing explanations and a denial that does not stand up to the damning videos and photos.
A “testament for future generations”
After two and a half days of requisitions at the end of November, the two attorneys general demanded the conviction of the 51 accused: between 10 and 18 years in prison 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 Laure Chabaud, but also a guide “in the education of our sons, because it is through education that change will be driven” for “a collective, societal awareness”.
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, Me Halimi, the lawyer who, at the Aix-en-Provence rape trial in 1978, allowed this attack to be recognized as a crime. 46 years later, Gisèle Pelicot but also a majority of women and men who support her, await this Thursday an exemplary verdict, worthy of this historic trial which changed France.
