The septuagenarian’s lawyer looks back on these four months of trial, during which she saw her client evolve and progress on the path to the truth. However, he is not at the end of his legal journey, between a probable appeal trial in the Mazan rape case and ongoing investigations into older crimes, in which he has been indicted twice.
What images do you keep from the four months of the trial? The opening on September 2?
September 2 is a day of excitement, and the following weeks are dizzying. I have this press that is there and bombards me with very legitimate requests and I am in a real whirlwind. If I had known this before, I think I would have arrived much more paralyzed. Except that all of this was a big surprise to me. I never considered what awaited me.
How did you deal with it?
During these four months, I experienced this trial very alone, beyond the support of those around me. I asked Dominique Pelicot if we could be two in defense, he didn’t want it. It was at that moment that I found this shocking formula which is truly the illustration of my thoughts: “Well it’s you and me Mr. Pelicot against the whole world.” I knew that I would have 40 lawyers against me, I did not know that there would be all this societal momentum, this whole feminist movement which is legitimate and which does not adhere to my cause. It’s normal, it’s their action, I totally respect it, just as I respect Ms. Pelicot’s fight and the symbol she becomes of these sexually assaulted women.
Is this public trial a surprise?
I had the information that she was not going to request a closed session a few days before the trial, through a media outlet which asked me what I thought about it, and I replied you Are you kidding? After thinking about it, I said to myself that this could be a good thing, giving another look at marital rape and surprise rape, since everyone only understands rape as rape with violence.
Did you envisage such a worldwide impact?
This excitement in the international press stunned me. The local and national media, I knew they would be there. But the opening of the audience door brings in the media from all over the world. I was at the very beginning of my activity behind the scenes of the Elf file, I had already heard of what media coverage was, but there, I really became aware of being in the process of experiencing something something that would not be experienced twice in a lifetime.
How can we understand such a resonance?
Because it happens in the bedroom. Within a couple married for fifty years who everyone says are the ideal couple. We find ourselves in the privacy of a marital bed, and it is in these sheets that the crime is committed. That’s what captivates. Everyone can relate to it. This can happen to anyone.
Very quickly, Dominique Pelicot’s health failed. What happened?
I heard here and there that Dominique Pelicot was perhaps sick on purpose, that upset me because there were certificates and medical consultations. Afterwards, did he somatize, was the anxiety so strong that the body did not resist? Why not. I don’t rule it out. This man, on September 2, found himself facing his wife in the courtroom. This is the first confrontation since November 2, 2020, when they said goodbye in the waiting room of the police station. For him this first face-to-face meeting was a source of terrible anxiety. But he had the courage not to be a coward. He might never have come to his trial. How many times did he tell me, I’m going to end my life, and how many times did I catch him with my arms, saying, don’t do that, everyone will rejoice of your death. You will continue, you must cope.
He says he wanted to tell the truth, but seems to have kept his dark side?
I think Dominique Pelicot has made progress. During the three and a half years that we met in the lawyer’s room, the why and how was very complicated for him to verbalize. From September 2, when the debates began to identify possible motives, we began to list. To say to yourself, it could be this, or that. And then finally he said something very true: “Submit a rebellious woman.” And also what I pleaded: was it not an aging body that passed on its virility to the men who penetrated its wife in its place? Isn’t all this actually his last erection? So. Sometimes, in the lawyer’s visiting room, he would say to me, well that’s it! And I told him, Mr. Pelicot, we are not going to be able to be satisfied with that, we have to develop, deepen, get to the bottom of things. We cannot remain on approximations. This is why I had to speak again on the last day of the debate. By telling him, it’s just you and me, we forget the court, the public, we communicate with complete confidence. And he then freed himself from his mobile.
What condition is he in?
As I argued, he is a man who went to the end of himself, and who found no one. He feels like he’s nothing anymore. He thanked me for what I provided to the court and for my remarks, which he considered clear. He said to me: “I still have work to do, but I think I will get there. I have to get out of all this, but you have pointed out some real things. The work will be long, but I know I’ll get there.”
My words allowed him to touch on things. He was in tears when I went to see him after the plea. It was a useful argument in the eyes of my client, and I think it is the most important for a lawyer.
His legal journey is not over. And for you?
I’m absolutely not giving up. I asked him: “Shall we continue together?”, and he said to me: “More than ever!” So if we have to go on appeal, to Nîmes or elsewhere, then to Versailles, we will go there. Him and me again, against the whole world.
