In France, tens of thousands of people turned out for protests across the country in support of Gisèle Pélicot and against sexual violence.
The countrywide protests highlighted how Pélicot’s courage in speaking out about her ordeal has inspired people in France and beyond, despite being horrified by the scale and brutality of the abuse she endured for a decade. She received many warm words for her composure and her decision to hold the hearing in public.
Elsa Labouret, one of the Paris demonstrators and a spokesperson for the women’s group “Osez le féminisme!” (Dare to be feminist!), said:
She has decided to make this an emblematic trial. Victims don’t have to do what she did. They have a right to have their anonymity protected. It’s not necessarily a duty of any victim. But what she decided to do is very, very important because now we cannot ignore the violence that some men can resort to.
Placards they held up read: “Shame must change sides,” “Stop the denial,” “Not your punching ball” and “We are all Gisele. Are you all Dominique???”
Paris demonstrator Khalil Ndiaye, a student, expressed his respect for her: “Because in her pain, she decided not to give up and not to just lie down. She decided to fight. And we’re all here today because she’s fighting and she’s inspiring us to fight, too.”
The trial of her ex-husband, Dominique Pélicot, and dozens of other 51 men accused of raping her while she was drugged and unconscious began on 2 September. He admitted in court that for nearly a decade he repeatedly drugged his unsuspecting wife and invited dozens of men to rape her while she lay unconscious in their bed. Many of them deny taking part in the rape, saying her then-husband manipulated them or that they believed she consented to it herself. Although, he confirmed that he raped Gisele and that the 50 other men also on trial knew exactly what they were doing.
