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Gisèle Pelicot takes the stand
Angelique Chrisafis
Gisèle Pelicot has taken the stand, with her former husband Dominique Pelicot watching from the dock. The president of the court told her she will have the opportunity to talk about evidence so far and on the issue of drugging.
Key events
Angelique Chrisafis
Gisèle Pelicot said she wanted to address her husband, calling him Dominique, but saying she did not want to look at him.
“So many times, I said to myself how lucky am I to have you at my side.” She said he had stood by when she thought she was ill with neurological problems (which were later found to be due to his drugging of her.)
“He took me to neurologist, to scanners when I was worried. He also went with me to the gynaecologist. For me, he was someone I trusted entirely.”
She said: “How can the perfect man have got to this? How could you have betrayed me to this point? How could you have brought these strangers into my bedroom?”
Gisèle Pelicot takes the stand
Angelique Chrisafis
Gisèle Pelicot has taken the stand, with her former husband Dominique Pelicot watching from the dock. The president of the court told her she will have the opportunity to talk about evidence so far and on the issue of drugging.
Marion Dubreuil, a court reporter for RMC radio, has been sketching some of the women – wives, girlfriends and mothers – of some of the accused men whose cases were being heard in court this morning.
Angelique Chrisafis
Among those who testified in court this morning was the mother of Florian R, a 32-year-old delivery driver and father of three who is accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot in December 2019.
The woman in her fifties told the court that she worked as a cleaner. She had Florian R before she was 20-years-old, then separated from his father three months later.
She said she was cross with her son when she found out the charges. “I wondered did I get something wrong in the way he was raised? I know what he did is very serious. I don’t hide that.”
Earlier this month the Guardian’s associate editor, Europe, Katherine Butler, spoke to Angelique Chrisafis about why this trial is so unusual and whether it might change French attitides to sexual violence.
Trials like this are normally held behind closed doors, away from the media, but this case is being heard in public because Gisèle Pelicot “wanted to draw attention to the use of drugs to commit sexual abuse,” Angelique said.
“That’s why she called for the lifting of restrictions on the screening of video evidence in the trial. Her lawyer said the ‘shock wave’ of this public trial and public video evidence was necessary to show the true horror of rape” and “help prevent other women from having to go through this”.
The trial is also highly unusual because it can’t rely on the victim’s evidence. “In most rape trials, the alleged rape would be detailed by the victim’s word against the word of the alleged attacker,” Angelique said.
“In this case, the victim was drugged and comatose with no recollection. Instead, the main defendant, Dominique Pelicot, has admitted rape and meticulously kept video evidence. It is that video evidence which is crucial – without it there wouldn’t be a trial. So often, in other rape cases, there is no such video evidence.”
The court proceedings have highlighted confusion over what constitutes consent. “Many of the men on trial with Pelicot argue that they didn’t intend to commit rape, saying they thought Gisèle was pretending to be asleep and that they were pressured into it,” Angelique said. “The courtroom testimony has highlighted how society in general has not yet got a clear understanding of consent.”
Could Gisèle Pelicot’s conduct and the extensive media coverage of the case mark a turning point for attitudes in France, and perhaps elsewhere?
“Many French writers have said this case marks the end of a stereotype of the ‘monster’ rapist – or the notion that rapes are only carried out by strangers,” Angelique said. “Instead it has highlighted the dangers women face in their own homes and within marriages or relationships. Some of the accused men had notable jobs in society such as local councillor, nurse, prison warden or journalist.”
The court has heard testimony from one more witness – the girlfriend of one of the accused, 31-year-old Gregory S – and will now take a 15-minute break, after which Gisèle Pelicot is expected to take the stand at about 11.30am local time.
Roughly midway through the trial, which is due to last until December, she has been invited by the court to comment on and respond to the evidence and testimony that have been heard so far.
Angelique Chrisafis
This week, the court is hearing the cases of six men accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot.
They include a 34-year-old prison warden, a 55-year-old electrician, a 32-year-old delivery driver, a 46-year-old mirror-maker and a 31-year-old painter and decorator.
One of the accused, a 47-year-old former factory worker, was driven to the Pelicots’ village by his then girlfriend who waited in the car for him at the time he is accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot. A canteen worker, she told the court she did not know what happened that night and had not asked any questions.
All of the six men will be in court when Gisèle Pelicot speaks this morning.
Dominique Pelicot, Gisèle Pelicot’s former husband, who has admitted to drugging and raping her and said he recruited men online to rape her, was sitting in a secure glass-screened area of the court, guarded by two police officers. Every day he is brought to court from his prison cell where he is being held on remand.
Here are some more pictures of Gisèle Pelicot arriving at the courthouse in Avignon this morning:
Who are the men accused of rape and assault?
The 50 men accused of rape and assault alongside Gisèle Pelicot’s former husband, Dominique are aged between 26 and 74. They include a nurse, a journalist, a prison warden, a local councillor, a soldier, lorry drivers and farm workers. They each face up to 20 years in prison.
In total, 49 are accused of rape, one of attempted rape and one of sexual assault. Five others are also accused of possessing child abuse imagery.
Most lived in south-eastern France within a 60km radius of the village of Mazan, where the Pelicots lived. Six have previous convictions for domestic violence, two have convictions for sexual violence. A total of 23 have a criminal record for offences such as drunk-driving and possession of drugs.
Some of the accused men have admitted rape but said they did not set out with this intention, and have apologised in court to Gisèle Pelicot, 72, a grandmother and former logistics manager. Others have denied the charge of rape, saying they believed they were taking part in a game by the couple.
Angelique Chrisafis, who has been following the trial since it began in early September, has been compiling brief pen portraits of the men accused as they appear in court. You can read her full account here:
Gisèle Pelicot he has been hailed as a feminist hero across France, commended for her courage at rallies across the country and applauded by supporters each time she enters or leaves the courtroom in Avignon.
But tributes to her have also come from beyond the country’s borders, with solidarity from Austria to Australia hinting at the role she has played in galvanising a global conversation around sexual violence.
The Guardian’s European community affairs correspondent, Ashifa Kassam, takes a look at the expressions of solidarity with Gisèle Pelicot that have sprung up around the world:
Gisèle Pelicot due to take the stand shortly
Angelique Chrisafis
Gisèle Pelicot is expected to take the stand at about 11am local time. Through her lawyer, she commented on the testimony of the wife of one of the accused men this morning.
A 45-year-old Vietnamese woman testified in connection to her husband, Jean Luc L, a 46-year-old mirror-maker, who is accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot on two occasions in 2018 and 2019.
Jean-Luc L’s wife of ten years, who has two children with him, told the court that because her own mother was ill at the time, she had not wanted sex with her husband and had said no to him over a long period of time. Asked how she felt when police told her of the rape charges against her husband, she told the court in a soft voice, translated by an interpreter: “I was very sad, in shock. But I think because I refused him all the time, as a man he had to look elsewhere.”
Gisele Pelicot’s lawyer, Stéphane Babonneau, told the court: “You thought that because you refused a sexual relationship, because your mother was very ill and your mind was on other things, you thought you had a role in what happened, and Gisèle Pelicot could not help reacting. For her, it’s not because you refused a sexual relationship that it led to this happening. Because there is never an obligation to have sexual relations with your husband. Do you understand that?”
Babonneau continued: “Gisèle Pelicot says you have no responsibility whatsoever in the fact that your husband decided to do what he did.”
Angelique Chrisafis
More than a hundred members of the public had queued from before 7am outside the Avignon criminal court to listen to Gisèle Pelicot from an adjacent room where proceedings are transmitted.
“What happened was so horrible that it’s important for a maximum of people to be here to show support,” said one 73-year-old artist from Avignon.
On fortifications opposite the court, a banner read “A rape is a rape.” Across Avignon, many streets had been papered with collage in support of Gisèle Pelicot, with messages such as: “Gisèle – womeon thank you.”
Gisèle Pelicot arrived at the courthouse shortly before 9am local time and was applauded by onlookers as she has been thoughout the trial, which – after requesting it be open to the public – she has attended almost daily since it began on 2 September.
Franco Info radio’s police and crime correspondent filmed her arrival.
Opening summary
Hello. Today, Gisèle Pelicot – the woman at the centre of the mass rape trial that has shaken France – is due to address the courtroom.
Her former husband, Dominique Pelicot, 71, has admitted drugging his then-wife with sedatives and anti-anxiety medication to render her unconscious so that he and dozens of strangers he recruited in online chatrooms could allegedly rape her between 2011 and 2020 in the village of Mazan in Provence.
The 50 other men on trial, aged between 26 and 74, with professions ranging from fire officer to journalist, are alleged to have been recruited by Pelicot, who said they knew they were being invited to commit rape.
In almost two months of testimony, the court has heard from dozens of accused men. The majority denied rape.
Some of the accused men have admitted Pelicot told them he was drugging his then-wife, but others have said they believed they were participating in a couple’s organised game.
The court heard briefly from Gisèle Pelicot early on the trial but now, at the midway point, judges are giving her the chance to comment on, and respond to, what the court has heard so far.
The Guardian’s Paris correspondent, Angelique Chrisafis, is at the courtroom and we will be bringing you the latest updates from Avignon.