Gisèle Pélicot was a retiree with a quiet and peaceful life. Three children, a wonderful husband and grandchildren whom she enjoyed on weekends while her husband went on bicycle trips with friends along the roads of Mazan, the town in the south of France where they had moved eight years ago, fleeing the outskirts of Paris. One morning, however, she received a call from the police station. “You have to see some images.” In the videos, found by the police in thousands of files that her husband had on his computer, she always appeared lying on the bed in her bedroom, in a comatose state, while dozens of men, whom her husband had contacted on the Internet, sexually assaulted her. Her brain did not remember anything. But as the minutes passed, the last 50 years of her life, spent with that man whom she defined as a great guy, began to crumble.
The case came to light in 2020. But Gisèle, now 72, remained in the shadows, that dark place usually reserved for victims of sexual violence. It was her daughter, Caroline Darian, who carried the torch of media visibility through a book and interviews on the phenomenon of chemical submission, at that time still very little studied in France. Darian, who also lives with the suspicion of having been raped by her father, created the #Noteduermas association. In addition, she convinced her mother to transform the trial that began this week in Avignon into a symbol of the fight against this type of aggression, less publicized when it occurs in a domestic environment and the home medicine cabinet becomes a perfect weapon for rapists.
Such trials are always held behind closed doors and with strict measures in place to protect the victim’s privacy. But Gisèle, who recently divorced her husband, decided to ask that the proceedings be held in public – this would allow journalists to enter the courtroom and take notes on everything they saw and heard – and to appear before the media and go to the courtroom every day, showing her face. “It is time for the shameful to change sides,” declared her lawyer, in a phrase that feminists in France have been repeating for years and which sums up the historical significance of this trial. “I do this on behalf of all those women who may never be recognised as victims,” she proclaimed outside the courtroom.
The trial, as Gisèle’s daughter predicted, has received global media attention. And her mother’s attitude, something that cannot be demanded of all victims, experts warn, has become a symbol. “This trial deserves to go beyond the event and become a political subject,” says journalist Helène Devynck, who wrote a long column in The World this Friday, also pointing out the “patriarchal violence that comes with defending rapists in this case.” “I don’t know if she had properly assessed what it meant. Nothing had predestined her to this: a pensioner with a normal life, her husband, her grandchildren… That is also the strength of the story,” says the author of Impunitya book in which she accused the famous former presenter Patrick Poivre d’Arvor (PPDA) of rape and collected the testimony of dozens of women.
The press from all over the world has been flocking to the Avignon court in the past few days. Muriel Salmona, a psychiatrist and founder of the Association for Traumatic Memory and Victimology, highlights some of the variations that this novelty poses in a case of this type in France. “It also means that the defence does not have the courage to resort to certain arguments without everyone listening to them. They are also ashamed of themselves,” she points out. “Furthermore, in rape culture there are false representations such as that the victim has asked for it, or that she should not have done a certain thing. But this process is very particular because the victim cannot be blamed for anything: there is all the evidence, the confessions, there are videos and photos… and it is clear that consent cannot exist in a person who is asleep or drugged, almost in a coma. The process breaks stereotypes,” she points out.
Chemical submission is also shrouded in false myths, says Salmona. The problem is that there is a tendency to create a false representation that caricatures the phenomenon and always places it in a bar, a glass of drugs… but it is also very common in domestic environments. It is even used with children: they are given benzodiazepines, which act as relaxants, and so the rape leaves no physical trace,” says the author of The black book of sexual violence (Dunod, 2022).
Feminist associations throughout France have praised Gisèle P.’s courage and some have accompanied her to the courthouse every day. Elsa Labouret, spokesperson for the association Osez le feminisme, “believes that this is a turning point in the feminist struggle”. “Her attitude is extremely dignified. She rejects shame, because it is those who raped her who must bear the burden. Shame is one of the great obstacles to reporting, to fighting against these attacks. We are made to believe that we deserve it, even if we have done nothing. We are told that being a victim of violence has an impact on our virtue, on our body, it makes us dirty. But in the end, this shame plays a big role in the impunity of the aggressors”, Labouret points out.
Gisèle’s gesture, experts believe, cannot be required of all victims. “It is a very personal decision. It cannot be asked of everyone. It is exemplary of a certain way of being and certain people can do it. But if that is not the case, the victims must be protected, of course. What this woman is doing is torture. It is completely traumatising,” Salmona points out. “Even when we are not conscious, there is a structure in the brain that switches on in case of danger. That part of the brain recorded what was happening. And it becomes a traumatic memory. The drugs she was taking, anti-anxiety drugs, put her in a comatose state. She cannot have conscious memories of what was happening. It is like an amnesiac stroke. They are bodily memories.” She is constructing the mental memories these days in the courtroom with her face uncovered and in front of the press from all over the world.
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