Gisele and Dominique Pelicot were married for 50 years, and their life seemed idyllic for a long time. When Gisele began struggling with unexplained memory lapses, she was convinced it was the beginnings of Alzheimer's. She heard the truth from the police: for years, her husband had drugged her, raped her, and invited others to do the same. Dominique Pelicot has confessed to all the charges against him. In addition to him, 50 men aged 26 to 74 are accused. Many of them have children and are in relationships. Some claim they did not know Gisele was drugged during intercourse. Others claim they thought “her husband's permission” would be enough. Gisele did not want a trial behind closed doors because – as she emphasises – it is not she who should be ashamed, but those who wronged her.
The trial, which began in Avignon in early September, is causing huge emotions, not only in France. The main defendant is Dominique Pelicot, the ex-husband of 71-year-old Gisele, who for years drugged her and then organized her rapes. He has admitted to all the charges against him and faces up to 20 years in prison. In addition to him, there are 50 other men accused of participating in the procedure, which lasted almost a decade, from 2011 to 2020.
According to French law, Gisele Pelicot could have avoided an open trial and kept her story behind closed doors. However, she decided that it was important for all of France to hear about what happened to her. Although she divorced her husband and changed her name, she uses the Pelicot name during the trial so that – as she explains – the public will remember it. She also emphasizes that it is not she who should be ashamed, but the accused men.
As she told the court, she met her husband when she was 19. They were madly in love, they quickly got married. They are the parents of three children and have five grandchildren. They supported each other during health problems, they coped with financial problems together, their relationship turned out to be stronger than a fleeting romance. According to Gisele Pelicot, they had a normal sexual life. She assured that she trusted her husband completely. “I thought we had a strong relationship. We had everything to be happy,” she said.
Dominique was an electrician, entrepreneur, and avid cyclist. Gisele worked as a manager for 20 years in a company near Paris. In 2013, she retired, and the couple moved to Mazan, a small town in the south of France.
Their life seemed idyllic, but Gisele began to struggle with mysterious health problems. Her hair was falling out, she was losing weight, she had gynecological problems and – what worried her the most – she couldn't remember some nights, sometimes days. As she told the court, sometimes she woke up in the morning and couldn't remember watching a movie the night before, how she got into bed, or saying goodbye to her children. She was so concerned about her condition that she gave up driving. She was convinced that it was the beginnings of Alzheimer's or a brain tumor. In difficult situations, her husband supported her, taking her to specialists. However, no one could explain what was happening to her.
She only learned the truth in late 2020, when the police called her to the police station. There, she was informed that her husband had been slipping sleeping pills into her food and drink for almost a decade, raping her, and inviting dozens of men to his home to do the same. According to investigators, there could have been more than 80 men who committed the crime, but so far, the police have managed to identify 50 of them, who have just appeared in court.
Dominique Pelicot was caught after being caught trying to film women's private parts in a store. When investigators began checking his electronic devices, they found scenes of rape captured on photos and videos. Police used them to track down the other men.
Gisele admitted in court that she had no idea. She recalled only one situation that seemed disturbing to her – when her husband gave her a beer of a strange color, which he then poured down the sink. Now she believes that he was testing various methods of drugging her. “I lost ten years of my life, I will never get them back,” she emphasized.
She said that when she learned of the police findings, she thought about committing suicide, but with the help of her children and friends, she began to rebuild her life. She sold most of the belongings from their shared home and moved out. “I'm going to try to rebuild my life, although I don't know how,” she admitted.
Gisele Pelicot (middle) AP/EPA/GUILLAUME HORCAJUELO
A Cross-Section of French Society
Dominique Pelicot told police that all the men knew he was drugging his wife to force her into submission, and that they would follow the rules he set to make sure she didn’t wake up.
As the New York Times notes, the accused men are a cross-section of French society. They include truck drivers, soldiers, sales workers, a prison guard, a nurse, an IT expert who works for a bank and a local journalist. They range in age from 26 to 74. Many of them have children and are in relationships.
Most of the men accused of rape have pleaded not guilty. Some claim they were tricked because they did not know they were having sex with a drugged woman. Others claim they were lured by her husband into a “playful threesome” and Dominique Pelicot allegedly told them his wife was pretending to sleep because she was shy. Some claim they had “permission from her husband” and thought that was enough. Some believed that the woman had consented to being given drugs.
– It gives me the creeps – Antoine Camus, Gisele's lawyer, commented on these arguments. He added that if in 2024 the understanding of the concept of consent to sexual contact is at this level, then France as a country has “a lot, a lot of work to do”.
Dominique Pelicot hopes to use the trial to explain himself to his ex-wife and children, who have no contact with him, said his lawyer Beatrice Zavarro.
Gisele Pelicot enters the courtroom accompanied by her daughter AP/EPA/GUILLAUME HORCAJUELO
Problem with the definition of rape in French law
The New York Times notes that the trial comes at a time when France is debating how the law protects victims of sex crimes. Rape is defined in French law as “an act of sexual penetration” committed by “force, coercion, threat or surprise.” However, some French lawmakers want to change the law and demand that it be made clear that all sex without consent is rape, that consent can be withdrawn at any time and that there can be no consent if the intercourse takes place when the victim is intoxicated or otherwise impaired in judgment.
“There is a kind of naivety in France about sex offenders, a kind of denial,” says French lawmaker Sandrine Josso, who headed a parliamentary commission investigating how drug-related sexual abuse is treated in France. She accused a senator of spiking her champagne with ecstasy and attempting to sexually assault her.
Josso hopes the trial in Avignon will draw attention to the use of drugs to “prey on women” and make it clear that anyone can be a sex offender.
Main image source: AP/EPA/GUILLAUME HORCAJUELO