🔗 Share this article

Gisèle Pelicot, who survived nearly a decade of rapes by dozens of men after being incapacitated by her ex-husband, is expected to attend court in France once more this Monday. This follows one of the men convicted of raping her filed an appeal, triggering a new hearing.

Pelicot emerged as a feminist icon after choosing to waive her anonymity during the 2024 trial involving her ex-husband and numerous defendants. Her lawyer, Antoine Camus, explained that while she would have preferred the ordeal of another trial, she will be in attendance throughout the four-day appeal at the Nîmes court in southern France.

“Her presence is essential to explain that a rape is a rape, that there is no concept as a minor assault,” Camus told reporters.

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

Dogan asserted during the first trial that he believed it was a form of role-play. “I am not a criminal, that’s too difficult for me to accept,” he said. His legal representative refused to comment before the appeal.

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

Dominique Pelicot, considered one of the worst sex offenders in recent French memory, was handed 20 years in prison for administering drugs to 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 mashed potato or drinks, then invited men to assault her in the town of Mazan in the French countryside. A total of 50 other men were convicted in the case.

Now serving a prison sentence in isolation, Dominique Pelicot is scheduled to appear as a witness at the appeal. He is expected to repeat his previous testimony: “I admit to being a perpetrator and all the accused men in this room are rapists.”

Gisèle Pelicot, a 72-year-old former supply chain professional, had demanded that the initial trial be held in open court to educate the public about drug-induced rape. “It’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them,” she stated in court.

The case had a massive effect globally, with feminist organizations across the world supporting Gisèle Pelicot and world leaders issuing statements in her support.

However, campaigners and attorneys noted that the case exposed how prevalent and commonplace rape and sexual violence remains.

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 several occasions 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 electronic devices.

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 shown that the system continues to fail rape victims on a large scale.

This year, the European Court of Human Rights censured France for “not safeguarding” the rights of three teenagers who disclosed rape.

One teenager who accused more than a dozen firefighters of abuse was found to have suffered “secondary victimisation and discriminatory treatment” by the French justice system, which failed to protect her dignity “by allowing the use of judgmental and guilt-inducing statements, which reinforced gender stereotypes.”

In another instance, France was found to have violated 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 attached to the French prime minister’s office, found that despite a threefold increase 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 resulting in convictions.

More than 130 feminist groups are advocating for sweeping reform at every level of the French justice system in dealing with rape, calling for enhanced financial support and improved state support and prevention.

“This legal battle was a kind of electric shock, it allowed a lot of people to talk about rape and marital rape. However, there has not really been a government action. There is a great deal missing 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 societal shift to move from a culture of rape to a culture of consent.”

However, Garin stressed that wording alone is insufficient to address persistent “shortcomings” of the entire French state toward rape survivors. “We need a revolution in the system to improve how we deal with rape,” she said.