A silent march took place in support of Gisèle Pelicot and other female victims of sexual violence on Saturday in Mazan, the village where Pelicot’s husband is accused of drugging her and inviting more than 80 men to assault her at their home.
Hundreds of women and men turned out in solidarity with the woman at the centre of a case that has shocked the world. Members of the Pelicot family did not attend but said they appreciated the public support.
One woman on the march told French reporters: “I am there as a woman, mother and grandmother … I am here firstly to support Gisèle, who is really very brave, and other women and girls.”
She said she hoped the case would persuade people to “listen to women … and not close their eyes” to sexual abuse.
On Friday, judges at the mass rape trial in Avignon agreed to allow videos made by Dominique Pelicot of the alleged abuse of his wife to be shown to the press and public in the courtroom.
The president of the bench, Roger Arata, had argued the court should be cleared of those not directly involved in the case because the videos represented an affront to public decency and were too “shocking”.
The bench agreed to allow them to be screened in open court after Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyers insisted their client wanted them shown. As Pelicot, 72, was drugged to the point of being comatose, she has no memory of the rapes and says the videos are proof of what she suffered.
A majority of the 50 men accused of raping her have denied the charges, saying they thought she was pretending to be asleep and they had acted with the consent of her husband.
Antoine Camus, one of Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyers, told the court: “The great majority of those accused say they did not have the impression they were committing a rape. A perception is subjective, everyone can have a different one of the same event. Here we must at least debate the credibility of the perception claimed by the accused that they did not commit a rape.
“For Gisèle Pelicot, these videos explode the theory that the rape was accidental, due to inattention or carelessness. What they show is a rape of opportunity.”
Stéphane Babonneau, another of Pelicot’s lawyers, said: “For Gisèle Pelicot it is too late … the damage has been done. She will have to live with the 200 rapes she suffered while unconscious, and the brutality of the proceedings taking place in this courtroom for the rest of her life.
“But if the public nature of the debates means that other women don’t have to go through this, then the suffering she inflicts on herself every day will make sense,” he said.
Dominique Pelicot, a retired electrician, recruited men from an online chatroom called “Without their Knowledge” and invited them to the couple’s house in Mazan near Carpentras in Provence after drugging his wife with sleeping tablets and anti-anxiety medication mixed with her evening meal or wine.
The father of three, 71, who was caught only after a security guard found him filming up the skirt of a female customer in a local supermarket and called the police in 2020, has pleaded guilty to aggravated rape over a period of 10 years.
Gisèle Pelicot, who has become a symbol for feminists angered at France’s failure to respond to the #MeToo movement and confront widespread sexual abuse, has said police saved her life.
Another 30 men shown on almost 20,000 videos and photographs police discovered on a USB drive attached to Dominique Pelicot’s home computer have yet to be identified.
The court case will continue until the end of December. The accused face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
