🔗 Share this article

Gisèle Pelicot, who endured nearly a decade of sexual assaults by scores of men after being incapacitated by her former spouse, is set to appear court in France once more this Monday. This follows one of the men found guilty of raping her filed an appeal, leading to a second trial.

Pelicot emerged as a feminist icon after opting to waive her right to privacy during the legal proceedings involving her ex-husband and 50 other men. Her attorney, Antoine Camus, stated that while she would have rather avoided the ordeal of another trial, she will be present throughout the four-day appeal at the Nîmes court in the south of France.

“She will be there to explain that a rape is a rape, that there is no concept as a small rape,” Camus told reporters.

Husamettin Dogan, a 44-year-old construction worker sentenced to nine years in prison for raping Pelicot, has challenged his conviction. The initial trial established that Dogan contacted her then-husband through a online forum and drove to their home the same night in June 2019, informing his own wife he was leaving. He was found guilty of raping Gisèle Pelicot while she was unconscious.

Dogan claimed during the first trial that he believed it was just a game. “I’m not a rapist, that’s too heavy for me to bear,” he said. His legal representative refused to comment before the appeal.

Initially, 17 of the 51 convicted men signaled they would appeal, but 16 dropped out over time, leaving only one appeal active.

Dominique Pelicot, described as one of the most notorious sex offenders in recent French memory, was sentenced 20 years in prison for drugging his then-wife and inviting numerous men to rape her at their home in southern France over many years of marriage.

Testimony in last year’s trial disclosed that Dominique Pelicot had crushed sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication into his wife’s food or drinks, then brought in men to assault her in the village of Mazan in the French countryside. A total of 50 other men were convicted in the case.

Now in a prison sentence in solitary confinement, Dominique Pelicot is set to appear as a witness at the appeal. He is expected to restate his earlier testimony: “I admit to being a perpetrator and all the accused men in this room are rapists.”

Gisèle Pelicot, a 72-year-old former logistics manager, had insisted that the first trial be held in open court to raise awareness about assault under sedation. “We should not feel ashamed, it’s for them,” she stated in court.

The case generated a significant impact worldwide, with feminist organizations across all continents supporting Gisèle Pelicot and world leaders issuing statements in her support.

However, campaigners and lawyers noted that the case exposed how prevalent and frequent rape and sexual violence continues to be.

In a recent case, a 46-year-old man in Normandy was given 12 years in prison for raping his partner while she was unconscious on multiple instances in 2022. Similar to Dominique Pelicot, he first came to police attention for filming up a woman’s skirt in a supermarket, and investigators later discovered videos of the assaults on his digital equipment.

The appeal in the Pelicot case takes place amid growing criticism of the French justice system’s handling of rape. Several damning reports since the first trial have indicated that the system continues to disappoint rape victims on a significant level.

This year, the European Court of Human Rights censured France for “failing to protect” the rights of three teenagers who disclosed rape.

One teenager who accused several firefighters of abuse was found to have suffered “re-traumatization and discriminatory treatment” by the French justice system, which did not act to protect her dignity “by allowing the use of judgmental and guilt-inducing statements, which propagated gender stereotypes.”

In another instance, France was found to have breached the European Convention on Human Rights in the case of a hospital pharmacist who filed a rape complaint against her supervisor.

This month, the High Council for Equality, an advisory body associated with the French prime minister’s office, reported that despite a tripling in rape complaints in France since the global #MeToo movement in 2016, the number of cases reaching court remains alarmingly small, with only 3.3% of complaints leading to convictions.

More than 130 feminist groups are campaigning for sweeping reform at every level of the French justice system in addressing rape, calling for enhanced financial support and improved government assistance and prevention.

“This legal battle was a kind of electric shock, it enabled a lot of people to talk about rape and marital rape. However, there has not really been a political response. There is a great deal lacking in France, and major flaws [in the justice system],” said Anne-Cécile Mailfert of the Fondation des Femmes.

Separately, parliament is currently considering adding a clear legal standard of rape into French law.

Marie-Charlotte Garin, a Green MP who backs rewording the law, stated that the Pelicot case had transformed French society’s understanding of consent and that updating the legal wording would help “a cultural change to move from a culture of rape to a culture of consent.”

However, Garin stressed that wording by itself is insufficient to address persistent “shortcomings” of the entire French state toward rape survivors. “It requires a overhaul in the system to improve how we deal with rape,” she said.