Verdicts are due in the historic French rape trial that turned Gisele Pelicot into a feminist hero

Gisele Pelicot leaves the courthouse, in Avignon, southern France, Dec. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)

AVIGNON, France -

French judges plan to deliver hugely anticipated verdicts this week in a historic drugging-and-rape trial that has turned the victim, Gisele Pelicot, into a feminist hero.

Everything about the trial in the southern French city of Avignon has been exceptional, most of all Pelicot herself.

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She has been the epitome of steely dignity and resilience through the more than three months of appalling testimony, including extracts from her now ex-husband's sordid library of homemade abuse videos.

Dominique Pelicot carefully catalogued how he habitually tranquilized his wife of 50 years during their last decade together, so he and dozens of strangers he met online could rape her while she was unconscious.

Staggeringly, Dominique Pelicot found it easy to recruit his alleged accomplices. Many had jobs. Most are fathers. They came from all walks of life, with the youngest in his 20s and the oldest in their 70s. In all, 50 men, including Dominique Pelicot, stood trial for aggravated rape and attempted rape. Another man was tried for aggravated sexual assault.

"They regarded me like a rag doll, like a garbage bag," Gisele Pelicot testified in court.

Sifting through the charges, the evidence, the backgrounds of the accused and their defenses took so long that Dominique and Gisele Pelicot had birthdays during the trial, with both turning 72.

The verdicts are expected Thursday, or Friday at the latest, with the five judges ruling by secret ballot. Campaigners against sexual violence are hoping for exemplary prison sentences and view the trial as a possible turning point in the fight against rape culture and the use of drugs to subdue victims.

At protests during the trial, demonstrators held up pop-art images of Gisele Pelicot with her bob haircut and round sunglasses, along with slogans such as, "Shame is changing sides" and "Gisele, we believe you !" They also booed defendants as they entered the courthouse yelling, "We recognize you" and "Shame."

How did the case come about?

Dominique Pelicot's meticulous recording and cataloguing of the encounters -- police found more than 20,000 photos and videos on his computer drives, in folders titled "abuse," "her rapists" or "night alone" -- provided police investigators with an abundance of evidence and helped lead them to the defendants. That also set the case apart from many others in which sexual violence is unreported or isn't prosecuted because the evidence isn't as strong.

Gisele Pelicot and her lawyers fought successfully for shocking video and other evidence to be heard and watched in open court, to show that she bore no shame and was clearly unconscious during the alleged rapes, undermining some defendants' claims that she might have been feigning sleep or even have been a willing participant.

Her courage -- one woman, alone, against dozens of men -- proved inspirational. Supporters, mostly women, lined up early each day for a place in the courthouse or to cheer and thank Gisele Pelicot as she walked in and out -- stoic, humble, and gracious but also cognizant that her ordeal resonated beyond Avignon and France.

She said she was fighting for "all those people around the world, women and men, who are victims of sexual violence."

"Look around you: You are not alone," she said.

The blight of so-called chemical submission

Dominique Pelicot testified that he hid tranquilizers in food and drink that he gave his wife, knocking her out so profoundly that he could do what he wanted to her for hours.

In his medical records, police investigators found that he had been prescribed hundreds of tranquilizer tablets as well as the the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra. He told police that he started drugging his wife in 2011, before they left the Paris region to retire in Mazan, a small town in Provence where he invited other men to rape her in their bedroom.

In the videos, police investigators counted 72 different abusers but weren't able to identify them all. Dominique Pelicot told investigators that he also shared advice with people about drugging techniques and provided tranquilizers to others, too.

Gisele Pelicot told investigators that blackouts she suffered grew more frequent after they retired to Mazan in 2013, but that they stopped after her then-husband was taken into custody in 2020.

Spurred on by the trial, France's government this month helped roll out a media campaign alerting the public to the dangers of chemical submission, with a number for victims to call. The campaign poster reads: "Chemical submission takes away your memories but leaves traces."

The trial focused attention on consent

Although some of the accused -- including Dominique Pelicot -- acknowledged they were guilty of rape, many did not, even in the face of video evidence. The hearings have sparked wider debate in France about whether the country's legal definition of rape should be expanded to include specific mention of consent.

Some defendants argued that Dominique Pelicot's consent covered his wife, too. Some sought to excuse their behavior by insisting that they hadn't intended to rape anyone when they responded to the husband's invites. Some laid blame at his door, saying he misled them into thinking they were partaking in consensual kink. And some suggested that perhaps he had also drugged them -- which Dominique Pelicot denied.

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Campaigners refused to buy it. "A rape is a rape" read a large banner hung opposite the courthouse.

Prosecutor Laure Chabaud appealed to the judges for a verdict that will make clear "that ordinary rape doesn't exist, that accidental or involuntary rape doesn't exist," according to French media that followed the daily proceedings.

Caught 'upskirting' in a supermarket

What Gisele Pelicot initially described as a happy marriage to "a great guy" started to unravel in September 2020, when a supermarket security guard caught Dominique Pelicot surreptitiously filming up women's skirts.

Police investigators called her in for questioning and confronted her with the unfathomable -- some of her husband's secret photos of her.

She left him, taking just two suitcases, "all that was left for me of 50 years of life together."

Prosecutors have asked for the maximum possible penalty -- 20 years -- for Dominique Pelicot, and sentences of 10-18 years for the others tried on rape charges.

"Twenty years between the four walls of a prison," Chabaud, the prosecutor, said. "It's both a lot and not enough."