French rape survivor Gisèle Pelicot left a court in southern France for the last time on Thursday after her ex-husband was jailed for 20 years for drugging and raping her, and inviting dozens of strangers to meet her during abuse for almost a decade.
Dominique Pelicot, 72, was found guilty of all charges by a judge in Avignon. He stood trial along with fifty other men, all of whom were found guilty of at least one charge, although their prison sentences were shorter than what prosecutors had sought.
Although the trial is over, questions still remain about the Pelicot case and what happens next.
1. What will Gisèle Pelicot do next?
When she first climbed the steps of the Avignon courthouse in September, no one knew Gisèle Pelicot’s name. Over the next fifteen weeks, her fame as a rape victim who refused to be ashamed of what had been done to her grew dizzyingly.
By the time she left the tribunal on Thursday, hundreds of people were chanting her name and her picture was on the front pages of newspapers around the world.
She is now perhaps one of the most famous women in France. This means that although she has changed her name, it will be impossible for her to return to the anonymity that served her so well as she tried to rebuild a life after the revelation of her husband’s crimes.
Gisèle is not the first person whose unimaginable suffering has made her an icon. At great personal cost, she has become the symbol of a fight she never chose. It therefore seems unlikely that she wants to become an outspoken activist against gender violence, or a prominent feminist figure. Instead, she can fall back on what she has always said: music, long walks and chocolate – and her seven grandchildren.
“At the beginning of the trial she said, ‘If I last two weeks, that’s a lot.’ In the end she made it to three and a half months,” says her lawyer Stephane Babonneau. “Now she is at peace and relieved that it is all over.”
2. What really happened to Caroline?
Days after Dominique Pelicot’s crimes came to light, his daughter Caroline Darian was called to the police station and shown photos of an apparently unconscious woman dressed in unknown lingerie. She later said her life had “stopped” when she realized she was looking at pictures of herself.
Her father has always denied touching her, but Caroline – whose fear and devastation was evident in many court hearings – has said she would never believe him and accused him of looking at her ‘with incestuous eyes’.
But the lack of evidence of the abuse Caroline is convinced was inflicted on her has led her to say she is “the forgotten victim” of the trial. That idea has visibly permeated her relationship with her mother. In her memoirs – published after her father’s arrest – she accused Gisèle of not showing her enough support and implicitly choosing to side with her rapist ex-husband over her daughter.
Although Gisèle and her children have always sat next to each other in court and often huddled together whispering, there are signs of the toll the trial has taken on their relationship.
On Friday, Caroline’s brother David emphasized – as he has done before – that the trial was not just about Gisèle, but about their entire “destroyed family”.
“We children felt forgotten,” he said. “Quite honestly, I feel that while our attorneys did a remarkable job defending our mother, we were given a little less consideration.”
In her memoir, Caroline lamented Gisèle’s “denial as a coping mechanism”.
“Because of my father,” she wrote, “I am now losing my mother.”
3. How many suspects will appeal?
Aside from Dominique, all of the prison sentences given to the defendants were less than what prosecutors sought.
Several lawyers were visibly satisfied, meaning they are unlikely to encourage their clients to appeal their sentences. A man named Jean-Pierre Maréchal was jailed for 12 years – five less than prosecutors had asked for – and his lawyer Patrick Gontard told the BBC that it was “out of the question” he would appeal.
One of the defendants arrives in the courtroom. [Getty Images]
The months or years the men have spent in pre-trial detention will count towards their total sentence, meaning some could soon be released once they have served their minimum sentence.
One man who faced seventeen years in prison was ultimately sentenced to eight years in prison, and his lawyer Roland Marmillot told the BBC that because he had already spent a number of years in prison, he would likely be released relatively soon.
Yet by the morning after the trial concluded, two men who had each been jailed for eight years had already appealed. More are expected to follow in the next ten days – the period within which appeals can be lodged.
4. What else could Dominique Pelicot be guilty of?
Dominique Pelicot has admitted that she attacked and attempted to rape a 23-year-old real estate agent, known by the pseudonym Marion, on the outskirts of Paris in 1999. A cloth soaked in ether was placed over her mouth, but she managed to fight off the attacker. away and he fled. It wasn’t until 2021, after he was arrested for the crimes he committed against his wife Gisèle, that Pelicot’s DNA was checked against a blood speck found on Marion’s shoe, and he admitted his guilt.
However, he has denied any responsibility in another cold case – the 1991 rape and murder of another young real estate agent, Sophie Narme, for which no DNA exists. Researchers have argued that the two cases are too similar to be a coincidence.
Other cold cases where similar modi operandi were used are also being revisited.
5. Will the trial be a turning point?
“There will be a ‘before’ and an ‘after’ of the Pelicot trial,” a Parisian man told the BBC in the early days of the trial.
For many, this sentiment has only grown in recent months, as intense media coverage of the Pelicot trial sparked countless conversations about rape, consent and gender violence.
“What we need to do is much harsher punishments,” Nicolas and Mehdi, two residents of Mazan, told the BBC. They said they were “disgusted” when they discovered one of the defendants was a man they had played football with.
“With longer sentences they will at least think twice before doing things like this,” they said, adding that it was “insanely unfair” that some men could be released from prison in the coming months.
The Pelicot trial has led to calls for changes to French laws on consent. [Reuters]
However, it is worth noting that the risk of a 20-year prison sentence for aggravated rape did not stop Dominique Pelicot from offering to allow his unconscious wife to be raped by strangers he met online.
There have been calls to reform France’s rape laws to include consent, but that has stalled in the past and would require a lot of work in France’s currently divided parliament.
Some have argued that schools have a responsibility to better educate new generations about sex, love and consent. Béatrice Zavarro, Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer, has said she believes “the change will not come from the Ministry of Justice, but from the Ministry of Education.”
Béatrice Zavarro, Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer, says schools have a responsibility to provide better sex education. [EPA]
Françoise, a resident of the area where Gisèle and Dominique Pelicot used to live, told the BBC that she thinks a way must be found to bridge the gap between what children learn in schools and the kind of material they can access online.
“Young people are so exposed to sex on the internet and at the same time schools are very prudish,” she said. “They should be much more open and honest in matching and explaining what children see.”
What these exchanges show is that while it will take some time for changes to become tangible, a conversation has now begun. This will continue until there are no more unanswered questions.
