by Lorenzo Rossi
There are silences that weigh like boulders. And there are women who find the strength to break them. Gisèle Pelicot, victim and symbol, left the hearing room first. She chose silence, but her gesture speaks for her: a step beyond horror, towards justice. Behind her, 51 men, her tormentors. No one acquitted, no one spared. Six will be free, because preventive detention covered the sentence imposed. Twenty-six, however, will go directly to prison. The sentences, from three to thirteen years, were less severe than requested by the prosecution, but for once the scales of justice swung towards the right side. The Mazan affair is a story that has profoundly shaken public opinion, a trial that not only led to the conviction of 51 men, but also highlighted the brutality of domestic and sexual violence on an unprecedented scale. It all revolves around Dominique Pelicot, a man who for over a decade drugged his wife Gisèle with anxiolytics and then raped her and handed her over to dozens of strangers recruited on the Internet. The theater of horror was their home, a place that was supposed to represent safety and love, but which turned into a daily nightmare.
The trial of Mazan, a municipality located in the department of Vaucluse, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, in the south-east of France, which ended with the conviction of all the defendants, was defined as unique due to the extent of the crimes and the number of accused. The facts that emerged in the courtroom revealed not only the systematic nature of the violence perpetrated by Dominique Pelicot, but also the involvement of other men, who knowingly participated in these abuses. Dominique Pelicot, considered the main architect of these abuses, was sentenced to the maximum sentence of 20 years, with a security period of two thirds. A strong signal, but one that does not erase the years of suffering suffered by the victim. The victim, meanwhile, has become the symbol of a larger battle: that of breaking the silence on gender violence. Thanks to his determination, the trial was made public, becoming an event that helped raise awareness in society of the importance of reporting and combating these crimes.
Mazan’s story is not just an account of abuse, but a painful reflection on collective responsibility in the face of violence that often takes place in the shadows. It is a warning to all of us, that no other Gisèle will ever have to face a similar ordeal again. Gisèle fought for the trial to be public, so that the pain would not remain confined within the walls of her home transformed into a prison and theater of atrocities. “You embody admirable strength and resilience,” Prisca Thevenot, a former minister, wrote to her. Yaël Braun-Pivet, president of the National Assembly, went further: «Thanks to your courage, shame has changed sides. The world is no longer the same thanks to you.” But Mazan’s trial wasn’t just the stage for Gisèle’s courage. It was also the court of cruelty of Dominique Pelicot, the executioner husband, who for ten years drugged and raped his wife, handing her over to dozens of strangers found on the Internet. For him, the maximum sentence: twenty years in prison, with a security obligation equal to two thirds of the sentence and registration in the register of sexual offenders. An unprecedented process, in terms of numbers and atrocities. Gisèle did not speak today. But he never remained silent. His courage is a beacon for all victims. And that silence, full of meaning, is the echo of a battle that has just begun to rewrite history.
