Gisèle Pelicot thanks backers after her ex-husband and his co-defendants are convicted in rape trial

AVIGNON, France (AP) — Gisèle Pelicot spoke of her “very difficult ordeal” after 51 men were convicted Thursday in the drugging-and-rape trial that riveted France and turned her into an icon, expressing support for other victims whose cases don’t get such attention and “whose stories remain untold.”

“I want you to know that we share the same fight,” she said in her first words after the court in the southern French city of Avignon handed down prison sentences ranging from three to 20 years in the shocking case that spurred a national reckoning about the blight of rape culture.

Pelicot’s ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, and all but one of his co-defendants were convicted of sexually assaulting her over a period of nearly a decade after he’d knocked her unconscious by lacing her food and drink with drugs. The other co-defendant was convicted of drugging and raping his own wife with Dominique Pelicot’s help.

As campaigners against sexual violence protested outside the courthouse, the 72-year-old Gisèle Pelicot expressed “my profound gratitude towards the people who supported me.”

“Your messages moved me deeply, and they gave me the strength to come back, every day, and survive through these long daily hearings,” she said. “This trial was a very difficult ordeal.”

Pelicot — a hero to many in France and beyond for courageously demanding that all the evidence be heard in open court — also said she was thinking of her grandchildren after enduring the more than three-month trial, where she sat in the same courtroom as her attackers.

“It’s also for them that I led this fight,” she said of her grandkids. “I wanted all of society to be a witness to the debates that took place here. I never regretted making this decision. I have trust in our capacity to collectively project ourselves toward a future where all, women and men, can live in harmony, with respect and mutual understanding. Thank you.”

Maximum penalty for her ex-husband

The court found Dominique Pelicot guilty on all charges and sentenced him to 20 years in prison, which was the maximum possible. At age 72, he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. He won’t be eligible to request early release until he’s served at least two-thirds of the sentence.

Dominique Pelicot and the other defendants stood up, one after the other, as chief judge Roger Arata read out the verdicts and sentences, which took more than an hour.

Gisèle Pelicot sometimes nodded her head as verdicts were announced.

Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer, Béatrice Zavarro, said she would consider an appeal, but she also expressed hope that Gisèle Pelicot would find solace in the rulings.

“I wanted Mrs. Pelicot to be able to emerge from these hearings in peace, and I think that the verdicts will contribute to this relief for Mrs. Pelicot,” she said.

Supporters decry some sentences as too low

Of the 50 accused of rape, just one was acquitted but was instead convicted of aggravated sexual assault. Another man was also found guilty of the sexual assault charge he was tried for — producing 51 guilty verdicts in all.

In a side room where defendants’ family members watched the proceedings on television screens, some burst into tears and gasped as sentences were revealed.

Protesters outside the courthouse followed the developments on their phones. Some read out the verdicts and applauded as they were announced inside. But disquiet grew as many of the sentences were lower than campaigners had hoped for, and cries of “shame on the justice system!” rose up from the crowd.

In addition to the 20 years they sought for Dominique Pelicot, prosecutors asked for sentences of 10 to 18 years for the others charged with rape. But the court was more lenient, with many defendants getting less than a decade in prison. The five judges voted by secret ballot, by majority for the convictions and sentences.

For the defendants other than Dominique Pelicot, sentences ranged from three to 15 years imprisonment, with some of the time suspended for some of them. Arata told six defendants they were now free, accounting for time already spent in pretrial detention.

Sophie Burtin, 53, who traveled from Lyon to show support for Gisèle Pelicot, said the trial “brought the subject of rape out into open” but expressed disappointment that “the sentences aren’t at all exemplary.”

“Some men will think, ‘OK, it’s alright, what they did wasn’t really a rape,’” she said. “The message that’s sent is, ‘Is it really serious?’ — with sentences that are so light. For me, It was meant to be a historic trial, but the feeling I have is that history hasn’t been made.”

Who is Gisèle Pelicot?

Gisèle Pelicot’s courage during the bruising trial and her appalling ordeal, inflicted on the retired power company worker in what she had thought was a loving marriage, galvanized campaigners and spurred calls for tougher measures to stamp out rape culture.

She waived her right to anonymity as a survivor of sexual abuse and successfully pushed for the hearings and shocking evidence — including her ex-husband’s homemade videos of the rapes — to be heard in open court, insisting that shame should fall on her abusers, not her.

The hearings fueled conversations on a national level in France and among families, couples and friends about how to better protect women and the role that men can play.

“Men are starting to talk to women — their girlfriends, mothers and friends — in ways they hadn’t before,” said Fanny Foures, 48, who joined other women in gluing messages of support for Gisèle Pelicot on walls around Avignon before the verdict.

“It was awkward at first, but now real dialogues are happening,” she said.

“Some women are realizing, maybe for the first time, that their ex-husbands violated them, or that someone close to them committed abuse,” Foures added. “And men are starting to reckon with their own behavior or complicity — things they’ve ignored or failed to act on. It’s heavy, but it’s creating change.”

A banner that campaigners hung on a city wall opposite the courthouse read, “MERCI GISELE” — thank you Gisèle.

Ex-husband’s sordid images

The defendants — strangers Dominique Pelicot recruited online — were all accused of having taken part in his sordid rape and abuse fantasies that he acted out with them and filmed in the couple’s retirement home in the small Provence town of Mazan and elsewhere.

He first came to the attention of police in September 2020 when a supermarket security guard caught him surreptitiously filming up women’s skirts.

Police subsequently found his library of images documenting years of abuse — more than 20,000 photos and videos in all, stored on computer drives and catalogued in folders marked “abuse,” “her rapists,” “night alone” and other titles.

The abundant evidence led police to the other defendants. In the videos, investigators counted 72 different abusers, but weren’t able to identify them all.

Although some of the accused — including Dominique Pelicot — acknowledged that they were guilty of rape, many didn’t.

Some argued that Dominique Pelicot’s consent covered his wife, too. Some insisted that they hadn’t intended to rape anyone when they responded to the husband’s invitations to come to their home. Some laid blame at his door, saying he misled them into thinking they were taking part in consensual kink.

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Associated Press journalist Alex Turnbull in Paris and Nicolas Vaux-Montagny in Lyon, France, contributed.

John Leicester, Tom Nouvian And Marine Lesprit, The Associated Press