If 2024 “belonged” to any one person, it was Gisèle Pelicot. The image of the 72-year-old grandmother sitting straight-backed in a French courtroom as her 50 rapists were convicted today is as indelible as the facts of the Avignon trial are inexplicable. A husband who, for 10 years, sedated and raped his wife at their Provençal home, then drove her to medical specialists for pelvic pain and memory loss. Forty-nine men who, under the cover of darkness, joined him in assaulting her—men identified as nurses and prison guards, firefighters and truck drivers, all living within a 31-mile radius of each other, ranging in age from 27 to 72. (“Monsieur-Tout-le-Monde,” as the French press dubbed them.) And then, making the prosecution’s case both airtight and uniquely horrifying, thousands upon thousands of images and videos of said rapes, neatly organized and catalogued in a hard drive file titled simply “abuse”—a pixelated who’s who of the predatory perpetrators.
“It’s time that the macho, patriarchal society that trivializes rape changes,” Gisèle told the court during her final statement this week. “It’s time we changed the way we look at rape.” Her stark refusal to be either shamed or ashamed throughout her 15-week trial has done more, I think, to accomplish that change than even she realizes. It’s Gisèle who chose, despite the concern of those around her, to have a public trial; Gisèle, too, who actively pushed to have the images and videos of her assaults shown in court. Journalists present have described them as excruciating to look at; I cannot fathom the strength it must have taken for her to endure rewatching them.
But she did endure it. And, in some ways—and some ways only—her decision to persist was vindicated. Today, bent double and weeping, her husband, Dominique, “the monster of Avignon,” received the maximum sentence of 20 years in jail for rape. Gisèle leaned her head against the wall of the courthouse as Judge Roger Arata meted out the punishment for her partner of five decades. And then, one by one, each and every one of her other 49 rapists was found guilty of aggravated rape and/or sexual assault. Outside the courtroom, an assembled crowd held a banner aloft that read: la honte change de camp. The shame changes sides.
And yet: Nearly all of Gisèle’s rapists, with the exception of her husband, received shorter sentences than prosecutors had asked for. Six of them will walk free from court today, having either served the duration of their sentence already or received a suspension. The longest sentence, bar Dominique’s, was 15 years, for Romain Vandevelde, a man who raped Gisèle six times and declined to use a condom despite knowing he was HIV positive. Jean-Pierre Marechal—the only defendant who did not assault Gisèle, but rather used Dominique’s methods to rape his own wife—received 12 years. Sometimes, Dominique would join him. Sitting in court, hearing the terms read out, Caroline Darian, Gisèle’s daughter, whispered the words: “This isn’t possible.”
