Gisèle Pélicot, as in the rest of the court days, appeared this Thursday with her face uncovered in the courtroom and prepared to testify before 51 men who raped her over a decade. Including her husband, Dominique Pélicot. Her testimony lasted more than two hours and, during this time, her husband, to whom she was married for 50 years and who drugged her so that other men could abuse her, barely raised his eyes from the floor. It was the first time they met since the man was arrested by the police, after they found more than 2,000 photos and videos on his computer showing his wife being sexually assaulted by the men who were in the dock this Thursday. Gisèle Pélicot has allowed her testimony to be made public: “I do it on behalf of all those women who will perhaps never be recognized as victims.”
More than half of the defendants, 35, have admitted having had sex with Gisèle Pélicot (72 years old), but have denied intending to rape her, claiming that they were deceived by Dominique Pélicot (71 years old). He, for his part, has admitted the facts of which he is accused: the chemical submission of his wife before handing her over to strangers contacted by internet in his own home in Mazan, a commune in the south of France.
During the three days of the hearing, Gisèle Pélicot has not broken down. Neither during the detailed account of the investigators about the 92 rapes she suffered, nor in her own statement on Thursday. Her speech was firm and the story structured and precise. But she has not only taken this step towards justice for herself, she has taken it for other women who are also victims. “I have stood firm for this trial, for me the damage has been done,” she said. She believes that she will be heard and that the process will be given the greatest possible publicity “so that no woman suffers this chemical submission.”
Gisèle Pélicot began her speech by describing how she learned of the rapes. “I would like to first describe the events, which for me began on September 19th. [2020]”, she said. That day, her husband told her that she had done something “foolish”. He had been caught filming up the skirts of three women in a supermarket. A month and a half later, they were both summoned to the Carpentras police station.
After recalling that call, Gisèle Pélicot looked back on what she believed her marital relationship to be like and said that there had only been two men in her life, the accused and another partner: “For 50 years I have always supported my friend. In 50 years we have not had a linear life, but we have always remained united. I thought that [la cita policial] “It was a formality.” However, the way the encounter with the officers developed was very different. The police officer in charge warned her: “I am going to show you things that you are not going to like”; and she replied: “I am scared, I don’t know at all what you are going to show me,” she said during the trial.
The policeman showed her a photo, but at first she did not recognise the woman in the bed. It was her. “She says to me: ‘Mrs Pélicot, look carefully’. I have trouble recognising myself, I am dressed in a certain way. In the third photo I say to her: ‘let’s stop, these are rape scenes, I am inert, asleep and they are raping me’,” she said in front of the accused, who listened attentively, some with their eyes fixed on the floor.
“Rape is not the right word, this is barbaric,” she said. After discovering the atrocities her husband was committing against her, all she wanted to do was disappear. “I’ll take my car and my dog and end it all,” she said she thought. As she left the police station, she called her son-in-law to tell him. Then, she called her daughter. That night, she and her three children held hands and cried in the living room of their home, she said during the trial.
Gisèle Pélicot has seen all the videos of the rapes she suffered. “They are not sex scenes, they are rape scenes. There are two, three of them on top of me. I am inert,” she said. “I was sacrificed on the altar of vice. When you see this woman drugged, abused, like a dead person. Of course, the body is not cold, it is warm, but I am like dead,” she said.
Gisèle Pélicot’s testimony lasted two hours. Towards the end, the septuagenarian let down her guard a little and her voice sounded a little less firm, while the public, lawyers and journalists praised her dignity. “Inside I am a field of ruins. The façade is solid, but behind…” she said.
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