Gisèle Pelicot’s Bravery

Gisèle Pelicot is a 72-year-old retired mother of three, who, until 2020, spent her days in the idyllic town of Mazan in the South of France looking after her grandchildren. Gisèle’s world fell apart in 2020 when police informed her that her husband of 50 years had a catalogue of video files on his computer of multiple men, whom he had contracted, raping her as she lay in a drugged state.

Dominique Pelicot was originally caught on unrelated charges — trying to film up women’s skirts in a supermarket — after which police seized his electronic devices and began to unravel his yearslong pattern of assault. Dominique allegedly drugged Gisèle from the years 2011 to 2020 and recruited at least 80 men to assault his wife in their home, in her own bed. Police have identified only 51 of those men, including Dominique himself. Police also recovered 3,800 photos and videos of Gisèle being assaulted.

Gisèle could have kept the case private. She instead waived anonymity and opened the case to the public, in order, her lawyers said, to put blame on the men who deserve it. The trial, which began on September 2, has gained attention across the globe. Thousands of women have shown up at the courthouse and at rallies in France to support Gisèle, who has been accompanied at trial by her daughter, Caroline Darian, who has accused her father of assaulting her as well. Gisèle was aware that opening the trial would require videos of her being raped to play in court. Her only request was that her children be allowed to leave the room when that happened.

Part of Gisèle’s motivation to publicize the trial was that the men police identified are shockingly normal, NBC News reported:

Most of the men are familiar faces in the towns ringing Mazan. They range in age from 26 to 74 and include truck drivers and tradesmen, a firefighter, nurse, soldier, prison guard and journalist. Half of the men have families. One is a father-to-be. They shuffled into court as if folding into themselves, clad in hoodies, caps and Covid masks.

Dominique was first inspired to drug and rape his wife when he met a nurse online who taught him how to administer the correct dosage: “I saw photos of his wife,” Dominique said. “That was the moment it started.” The monster then inspired another man to do the same: Jean-Pierre Maréchal, 63, a retired truck driver who received drugs from Dominique Pelicot, with which he spiked his own wife’s food. Maréchal raped his wife repeatedly and allowed Dominique to do the same, at least three times.

“It is not for myself that I am testifying, but for all the women who suffer chemical submission,” Gisèle said at the courthouse.

There are so many horrible details of the case. Dominique had been arrested in 2010 for allegedly filming under women’s skirts, but he was released, and his wife was never told. During the years she was abused, Gisèle suffered psychological symptoms, which she attributed to dementia or Alzheimer’s, and gynecological problems, which she thought were random at the time. Most of the people who live in the small French town know someone connected to the case.

Such a betrayal would seemingly force a victim to retreat into silence, fear, shame, and utter despair. Gisèle has said that “inside [I am] a field of ruins; we will have to rebuild.” Even though she is “reduced to rubble,” she said, she has chosen to fight against the web of sexual predators who participated in her abuse.

What this case will reveal — about France’s sexual-assault laws, the ways in which law enforcement and health-care providers investigate chemical submission, and the websites by which sexual predators contact each other — is due to one woman’s courage in the face of monumental horror. What bravery.