With white roses in hand, residents walked silently through the streets of Mazan on Saturday afternoon in a symbolic act of solidarity with Gisèle Pelicot. The walk was organized by women who are part of a local association that supports victims of sexual violence.
For over a decade, the husband of Gisèle, Dominique Pelicot, drugged his wife and recruited around 80 men over the internet to assault and rape her in the couple’s home.
The husband, 71, and a father of three, was found out only after a security guard caught him filming up women’s skirts in a local supermarket in 2020. When the police investigated him, they found a USB drive in his computer that contained 20,000 photos and videos of his wife being raped nearly 100 times.
Dominique Pelicot, who pleaded guilty in September, faces multiple charges including rape, gang rape and privacy breaches by recording and disseminating sexual images.
During the trial on Friday, judges agreed to permit the videos to be shown to the press and public in the courtroom, after Gisèle insisted on making the videos and trial public. Gisèle said she was testifying “for all women” who had been assaulted while drugged and wanted to make sure “no woman suffers this.”
Some 50 men face up to 20 years in prison if convicted, the majority of whom have denied the charges against them. Another 30 men have yet to be identified and put on trial. The court case will continue until the end of December.
A participant in the silent march in Mazan, Catherine Borel, 69, told French daily Le Monde that she thinks Gisèle’s case will lead to progress on the issue of sexual violence.
“This trial is terrible, hard, but this woman [Gisèle] has tremendous courage to have managed to rebuild her life. It will enable us to make progress. I was a victim of things thirty years ago, and there was nothing anyone could do. They didn't believe me about the violence, and I ended up with my two kids climbing out of the window,” she told Le Monde.
The case has attracted worldwide attention and turned the trial into a symbol of the pervasiveness of sexual violence in society.
