A new type of graffiti has recently appeared on the walls of French cities: the portrait of a woman with bobbed auburn hair, who stands straight. She wears a pair of dark sunglasses like armor.
Changing outlook on rape
This is Gisèle Pelicot, 71 years old, at the center of a rape trial which shocked and moved public opinion, in France, but also throughout the world. Her (now ex) husband of five decades admitted to drugging her, raping her, and recruiting 50 other men to do the same, over several years.
“I express neither my anger nor my hatred, but my will and my determination so that we change this society”
Despite the trauma she suffered, Gisèle Pelicot, who made her final statement in court at the end of November, has become a heroine and a feminist icon since the trial began in September. She refused anonymity and the closed session offered to alleged victims of rape in France. On the contrary, she chooses to open the doors of the court to the public to expose the crimes committed by her husband – documented by sordid videos of the rapes suffered – with the aim of encouraging other female victims to testify openly as well.
“It’s not our place to be ashamed, it’s theirs,” she told the court. “I express neither my anger nor my hatred, but my will and my determination to change this society.”
Gisèle Pelicot has already done a lot: 85% of people questioned in France by Ifop said that this trial should encourage everyone, especially men, to do more to fight against sexual violence. The vast majority of respondents also said that the Mazan rape case had led them to reconsider society’s views and their own on this type of crime. The wide media coverage has made it possible to dismantle certain preconceived ideas: rape is generally not a crime committed by strangers, it can occur within a married couple, and the time taken by victims to file a complaint This is not a sign of the weakness of their accusations.
France lagging behind on consent
The debate has also been rekindled among lawyers and politicians as to whether France should review its legal definition of rape to include explicit consent. Currently, this notion is not clearly mentioned in French law, which can complicate rape cases when women are paralyzed or do not speak during the attack, according to lawyer Anne-Claire Le Jeune, who represented the French victims in the Jeffrey Epstein affair. “Our desire is to protect the victims as much as possible,” she said.
“In France there was resistance, with some lawyers seeing no need to change anything in the law”
A wave of laws based on consent, which can be summed up by the slogan ‘only a yes is a yes’ [‘only yes means yes’, ndt]has swept across Europe, with 20 jurisdictions – including Spain, Germany and Sweden – adopting them since the #MeToo movement began in 2017, according to a paper by Swedish academics published last year. In France, there was resistance, with some lawyers seeing no need to change anything in the law, while their opponents insisted it would shift the responsibility of proving consent from the victim to the perpetrator. of the act.
France’s justice minister said in late September that he favored changing the law, but it remains to be seen if and when that will happen.
“My world is falling apart”
Before Gisèle Pelicot’s life was turned upside down, she lived with her husband Dominique in the small village of Mazan, in the south of France. They were enjoying their retirement after respective careers as logistics manager and real estate agent. They had three adult children and several grandchildren.
Everything changed in 2020 when Dominique was arrested for surreptitiously filming under a woman’s skirt in a supermarket. Police investigated and found a computer containing numerous videos of sessions in which he put his wife to sleep and offered her to strangers in their bedroom.
When the police informed Gisèle Pelicot of their discovery, she said she did not remember anything. “My world is collapsing, for me everything is collapsing, everything I have built in fifty years,” she told the court.
A victim with his head held high
She initially refused to watch the videos, only relenting shortly before the trial on the advice of her lawyers. “Frankly, these are horror scenes for me,” she said. But she took it upon herself to allow her lawyers to push for the videos to be shown publicly as evidence. The judge initially refused before changing his mind.
Thirty-five defendants said they did not rape Gisèle Pelicot, a surprising number despite videos showing she was clearly unconscious, sometimes even snoring. These men, aged 26 to 74, of varied origins and with varying levels of education, form a representative sample of our society. Among them are a firefighter, a journalist and a soldier, as well as retirees and the unemployed. Some hid under hats and scarves as they entered the courthouse.
“Thirty-five defendants declared that they had not raped Gisèle Pelicot. These men, aged 26 to 74, of varied origins and with varying levels of education, form a representative sample of our society”
Their lawyers argued that they were not guilty because they did not intend to rape and that they had assumed that Gisèle Pelicot had accepted a “libertine game” led by her husband. For the accused, the husband’s approval constituted consent.
To support Gisèle Pelicot, feminist groups organized rallies across the country, while women came in numbers to support her at the Avignon court. Blandine Deverlanges, a high school teacher who founded a local feminist group, was among those who instituted systematic applause upon Gisèle Pelicot’s arrival and departure from court to express their “admiration, gratitude and respect” for She.
“I find that she has poise, dignity and that she keeps her head held high,” said Blandine Deverlanges.
“The Trial of Cowardice”
Gisèle Pelicot remained very stoic during the trial, but when she stood up to speak for the last time on November 19, her rage was expressed. “This is the trial of cowardice,” she said. “This scar will never close.”
Yet when asked why she kept her ex-husband’s last name, determination replaced anger. “I have grandchildren named Pelicot. I want them to be proud.”
Leila Abboud et Sarah White, FT
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