Hoping that the Mazan rape trial will make it possible to “change relationships between men and women”, the prosecution set the tone on Monday by asking for severe sentences against the first 21 accused, including the maximum sentence of 20 years' imprisonment. against Dominique Pelicot.
This case with international resonance, where around fifty men are accused of having raped a woman, Gisèle Pelicot, drugged by her now ex-husband Dominique, “will mark a before and an after”, in any case estimated the Prime Minister Michel Barnier, on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
“I will ask you to declare Dominique Pelicot guilty of all the facts with which he is accused”, launched Monday morning in Avignon, before the criminal court of Vaucluse, the vice-prosecutor Laure Chabaud on the subject of the septuagenarian, common denominator of the 50 co-defendants, these 50 men aged 26 to 74 to whom he had delivered his wife, previously sedated with anxiolytics, to their marital home from Mazan (Vaucluse), between July 2011 and October 2020.
“20 years is both a long time (…) but it is also too little given the seriousness of the facts”, she stressed, asking as a bonus “that at the end of her sentence (the accused) is subject to review with a view to a possible detention measure”.
Evoking the “perversely structured personality” of the main accused, 71 years old, the magistrate considered that he was “seeking his own pleasure” via the “submission, humiliation, even debasement of his wife “.
Dominique Pelicot, who had admitted the facts, claiming to have wanted to “subdue a rebellious woman”, seemed touched by the sentence required against him. “He is dejected,” testified his lawyer, Me Béatrice Zavarro.
Concerning Caroline, the couple's daughter, convinced of having also been the victim of rape or sexual assault at the hands of her father, Laure Chabaud on the other hand estimated that no element had been found allowing her “suffering to find a legal translation”.
– After Gisèle Halimi, Gisèle Pelicot –
Opening the prosecution's indictment, Jean-François Mayet, deputy attorney general, estimated that beyond the sentences, “the issue” of this trial was to “fundamentally change the relationships between men and women”.
This question of “male domination over women” is a subject “far from being unknown to everyone”, he recalled, drawing a parallel with the Aix-en-Provence rape trial of 1978, where another Gisèle, the lawyer Gisèle Halimi, had rape recognized as a crime.
And these requisitions were closely scrutinized as the main victim, Gisèle Pelicot, 71, achieved the status of international feminist icon after refusing to allow the trial to take place behind closed doors, “so that the shame changes sides”.
The prosecution then requested a prison sentence of 17 years against Jean-Pierre M., the only accused not to be prosecuted for sexual assault on Gisèle Pelicot but on his own wife.
Then the magistrate set out to undermine the arguments of the defense in advance, rejecting the supposed “implicit consent” or “consent by proxy” that Ms. Pelicot would have given: “We can no longer, in 2024, say + since she didn't say anything, she agreed+, it's from another age.”
“We could not place ourselves within the framework of a freely agreed scenario,” she also asserted several times, considering that the physical state of Ms. Pelicot, “inert” in the videos, is “particularly striking ” and left no doubt as to his inability to consent to anything.
– “Of nuance” –
Likewise, “if the videos show a certain insistence (from Dominique Pelicot), no pressure, no blackmail, no threat is perceptible”, she noted, dismissing the argument of “manipulation”.
If most of the accused are prosecuted for the same facts, namely aggravated rape of Gisèle Pelicot, and therefore all risk 20 years in prison, individualization of sentences is obligatory. But the prosecution set the bar very high when approaching the first co-defendants.
Against Joseph C., 69 years old, the only one prosecuted for “sexual assault in a meeting” and not for rape or attempted rape, the prosecution requested four years in prison.
Then the requisitions increased, at the rate of a quarter of an hour per accused: 10 years against 11 of them, 11 years against two others, then 12 years against four, 13 years against one.
Requests described as “staggering” and “out of proportion” by certain defense lawyers, who criticized the prosecution for having requested under the influence of “public opinion”.
“I fear what happens next. (…) We judge by public opinion, and we cannot accept that, as a defense,” said Louis-Alain Lemaire, lawyer for four defendants.
“The prosecution had the sword of public opinion at its back,” added his colleague Patrick Gontard, lawyer for Jean-Pierre M.: “Out of standard trial, out of proportion requisitions. I hope that the verdict will not be extraordinary, because at that moment, I will seek justice,” warned Mr. Gontard, suggesting that he could appeal.
“There needs to be nuance in the sentences, that we can only understand by following the trial,” Brigitte Jossien, 74, a retired store manager, who arrived as early as the hearing, had testified before the hearing even opened. 5:45 a.m. to attend the trial.
For the feminist collectives who put up a banner on the ramparts in front of the court, the request was less nuanced: “20 years for everyone”.
The indictment, officially scheduled for three days, could in fact end as early as late Wednesday morning. The floor will then be given immediately to the defense lawyers. The verdict is expected on December 20 at the latest.
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