Out of pure survival, Gisèle Pelicot has become a feminist icon at the age of 72, to raise her voice and stay alive, after thinking about suicide upon discovering the 200 rapes by chemical submission that she suffered over a decade.
This woman decided to expose herself publicly “so that shame changes sides,” as she defended in the trial that began on September 2 at the Avignon Court (southeast of France) that judges the dozens of rapes she suffered at the hands of, at least , fifty men, in a plan hatched by Dominique Pelicot, her ex-husband and confessed rapist.
Feminist symbol
For all these reasons, Gisèle has become, without looking for it, a global feminist symbol and one of the most influential women of the last year.
“Thanks to all of you I have the strength to take this fight to the end. I dedicate this fight to all people, women and men, who are victims of sexual violence in the world. To all those victims, I want to say: look around you, you are not alone,” he declared to the press on September 16, the first time he spoke to the world.
Since then, it has received avalanches of support, in the form of demonstrations, massive applause every day of the trial and posters of support plastered on dozens of streets in the small city of Avignon, where the trial will end this week with a sentence that could be historic.
Despite the integrity with which he has shown himself throughout the process, which he attended without hiding his face and in which he stared at the screen on which the dozens of rapes he suffered were shown, recorded in thousands of photos and videos that Dominique Pelicot made, and which are the key evidence in the trial, Gisèle does not know if she will be able to recover.
“I am a completely destroyed woman and I don’t know how I am going to get back up. “I don’t know if my life will be enough to understand everything that has happened to me,” he confessed.
The actions of the man who was at his side for half a century, a self-centered narcissist with multiple sexual deviations, as psychiatrist experts described, called everything into question.
A happy life broken by rape
Gisèle Pelicot’s life story is marked by a happy childhood, a successful professional performance at the French public electricity company EDF and a united marriage, after a brief separation, as she herself explained in court.
Gisèle and Dominique married in 1973, when they were 20 years old, in a union that his parents rejected. After a life in the Paris region, in 2013 the former couple settled in Mazan, a town of barely 6,000 inhabitants in the southeast of France, to enjoy a peaceful retirement.
That was when Dominique gave free rein to his multiple delusions, which began in 2011.
Until 2020, he was attacking the physical integrity of his wife, whom he put in danger of death due to the high doses of anxiolytics that he secretly gave her, in addition to the sexually transmitted diseases that they gave her, which exposed him to serious problems. of health.
By the trucko, Gisèle lived with multiple memory losses, whichthat those around him perceived with concern, especially his children, who thought he suffered from Alzheimer’s or a similar disease, also observing a significant weight loss in a few years.
She feared for her life and was distraught about the possibility of not seeing her grandchildren grow up, as she told the court.
Despite consulting several doctors during that period, they never noticed anything strange, although she suffered from chemical poisoning, due to the drugs her husband gave her, and also suffered from sexually transmitted diseases.
The divorce did not come until three years after her husband’s arrest and the discovery of the extent of his crimes. They had been married for 51 years with three children, David, Caroline and Florian.
For her and for those to come
Despite her fragility, Gisèle decided to resist. For her, for her children, for her grandchildren and for future generations, just like all victims of sexual violence, as explained by her lawyers, Antoine Camus and Stéphane Babonneau.
“I have grandchildren whose last name is Pelicot and I don’t want them to feel ashamed of their last name but rather proud of their grandmother”she defended when questioned by the lawyer of an accused, who asked her why she decided to keep her married name, despite having divorced her rapist.
“We will remember Mrs. Pelicot, much less Mr. Pelicot. There will be no more shame in having that last name,” he added firmly.
The sentence in the Pelicot case will be handed down with sentences that can reach 20 years
The court of Avignon, in the southeast of France, will hand down a sentence this Thursday in the historic macro-trial on the rape under chemical submission of Gisèle Pelicot, with sentences that can reach up to 20 years for each of the 51 defendants.
On November 27, the Prosecutor’s Office requested up to 650 years in prison for the total number of crimes, which include both rapes and sexual assaults against the 72-year-old victim.
The highest sentence requested, 20 years (the maximum contemplated by law in France), is for her ex-husband and mastermind of the plan, Dominique Pelicot, 72 years old, who from the beginning of the process recognized all the facts and assured that his fantasy It was “subduing an unsubmissive woman.”
