As she wound up her marathon closing speech, a painstaking summary of the decade-long horror inflicted on Gisèle Pelicot, the public prosecutor paused to reflect on the wider significance of the drama unfolding in Avignon.
For three consecutive days, Laure Chabaud had laid out the verdicts and punishments sought for dozens of men accused of raping Pelicot while she was drugged and rendered unconscious by her husband Dominique, her partner of 50 years, whom she has since divorced.
Chabaud and her fellow prosecutor called for a maximum 20-year prison sentence for the ex-husband, who has admitted enlisting dozens of strangers online to rape his sedated wife. They also sought jail terms of between 10 and 18 years for 49 co-defendants, and a four-year sentence for the last of the accused.
Such a verdict would “deliver a message of hope to all victims of sexual violence”, Chabaud told the court in southern France on Wednesday as she sought to draw lessons from the most notorious rape trial in modern French history.
“With your verdict, you will make clear that there is no such thing as ordinary rape; that there is no such thing as accidental or involuntary rape,” she said. “You will send a message to the women of this country that it is not inevitable that they should suffer, and to the men of this country that it is not inevitable that they should act.”
‘A rape is a rape’
Stretching over three days, the prosecution’s closing statement mirrored the extraordinary nature of a trial that has roiled France since early September and made headlines around the world.
The affaire Mazan, after the small town in Provence where the Pelicot couple lived, has sparked horror, protests and debates about male violence and the shortcomings of French laws on rape. It has also made Gisèle Pelicot an international feminist icon and champion of women’s fight against sexual abuse.
Waiving her right to anonymity, Pelicot pushed for graphic images that her husband filmed of the rapes to be presented in the courtroom, showing that she was unconscious and inert, sometimes audibly snoring. In their closing arguments, the prosecutors praised her courage and her desire to make shame change sides, so it falls on rapists and not their victims.
Read moreGisèle Pelicot slams ‘macho’ society that ‘trivialises rape’ in closing statement
Throughout the trial, feminist campaigners have plastered the walls of Avignon with messages of support for Pelicot and of condemnation for the accused men and the wider “rape culture” they have come to symbolise. Some of the messages quoted the defendants, who told the court they raped “unwillingly”, out of “curiosity” or “fatigue”, acting through “my body, not my brain”.
Some of the accused have faced boos and jeers from members of the public lining up outside the courthouse. Banners hung opposite the building this week read “20 years for each of them” and “a rape is a rape”.
Devil’s advocate
Kicking off closing arguments by some 30 defence lawyers, Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer Beatrice Zavarro told the court on Wednesday that her client had “accepted and admitted the harm of which he is accused”.
Zavarro, who described herself as the “Devil’s adocate”, recalled that Dominique Pelicot had been a “good husband, father and grandfather” according to all who knew him. She plunged back into his traumatic childhood – which he claims included sexual abuse – and shaky mental state to explain his “perversity”, while also insisting that he was not the “conductor” many of his co-defendants painted him as – an accusation their lawyers are expected to pursue as they deliver their closing remarks from Thursday.
While Zavarro said she was not surprised by the 20-year sentence requested for her client, several other defence lawyers have described the demands as “staggering” and “out of proportion”, alleging that prosecutors were under pressure from “public opinion”. Most defence lawyers are expected to argue that their clients were manipulated by Gisèle Pelicot’s former husband.
According to government figures, between 2017 and 2022 more than two thirds of convictions for aggravated rape led to prison sentences of 10 years or above.
Read more‘I was convinced it was a game’: Defendants begin testifying at Pelicot rape trial gripping France
In previous testimony, many of the accused said they believed Dominique Pelicot’s claim that they were participating in a libertine fantasy, in which his wife had consented to sexual contact and was only pretending to be asleep. Others said they thought the husband’s consent would be enough. More than half also argued that they were not in their right minds when they abused Gisèle Pelicot, a claim not backed up by any of the psychological reports compiled by court-appointed experts.
Dominique Pelicot had previously told the court that all of his co-defendants understood exactly what they were doing when he invited them to his home in Provence between 2011 and 2020 to have sex with his unconscious and unwitting wife.
A watershed moment
In her closing arguments, prosecutor Chabaud lamented the “inappropriate casualness” displayed by some of the defendants during the proceedings. She said claims they had “no intention” of raping Gisèle Pelicot would not make their responsibility “disappear”.
“In 2024, we can no longer say ‘she didn’t say anything, she agreed’, that’s from another era,” Chabaud told the court. She hoped that the sentences handed down at the verdict, due no later than December 20, would lead the defendants to “a real and profound awareness” of their actions, “particularly with regard to the notion of consent”.
The public prosecutor expressed hopes that the landmark trial would herald a fundamental change in society, describing the proceedings in Avignon as “a stone in the edifice that others after us will continue to build”.
“There will be a before and an after” this trial, Chabaud said in a phrase also used on Monday by Prime Minister Michel Barnier, whose government unveiled new measures to combat violence against women, including raising awareness about the use of drugs to commit sexual abuse.
Read moreFrance unveils new measures to protect women in wake of Pelicot affair
The trial has notably given fresh impetus to calls to introduce the notion of consent in French laws governing sexual abuse. Several lawmakers were in Avignon to attend the court hearings this week, including Green MP Marie-Charlotte Garin, the deputy head of a parliamentary fact-finding mission tasked with redefining rape in French criminal law.
Catherine Le Magueresse, a former president of the European Association Against Violence toward Women in the Workplace, said the Pelicot trial had highlighted the need to “come up with a positive definition of consent”. Speaking to AFP, she commended the prosecutors for their concern “to reach out to a wider audience and provide the legal elements needed to understand the issues at stake in this trial, particularly on the question of intentionality, which lies at the heart of the defendants’ strategies”.
Le Magueresse said Gisèle Pelicot’s ordeal highlighted the need to provide sex education in schools and rethink the way we approach relations between women and men.
“The Pelicot trial has affected every one of us and raised difficult questions about the social attitudes of some men,” she said. “What have we done wrong as a society to produce men who are capable of such inhumane behaviour?”
Leave a Comment