‘Everyone needs to see the faces of the rapists’: Gisèle Pelicot’s memoir reveals moment she went for public trial

Gisèle Pelicot has opened up astir nan infinitesimal she decided to bravely waive her anonymity and person a nationalist trial, paving nan measurement for France’s astir shocking wide rape case.

Ms Pelicot’s recently released memoir, A Hymn to Life, details nan harrowing ordeal she suffered aft discovering her then-husband drugged past raped her while unconscious, on pinch dozens of men he had recruited online.

In nan book, written pinch journalist Judith Perrignon, nan now 73-year-old recalls nan infinitesimal her “brain unopen down” arsenic constabulary told her what Dominique Pelicot and 51 different attackers had done.

She besides speaks of nan aggravated media sum surrounding her case, highlighting really she was often described arsenic “dignified” and an “icon”, words she appears to consciousness ambivalent astir – though she feels powerfully astir offering “my acquisition arsenic an illustration and my sanction arsenic a conflict flag” to thief different women.

“Here I am, successful my seventies, a martyr, nan awesome of a caller feminist activity that I hardly cognize a point about,” she writes successful nan memoir, which went connected waste connected Tuesday.

Among nan revelations successful nan book, Ms Pelicot goes connected to explicate that she still wants to sojourn her hubby successful situation successful her quest for answers.

He and nan different men were jailed for a full of 428 years successful 2024, aft 47 of them were recovered blameworthy of rape, 2 were recovered blameworthy of attempted rape, and 2 were recovered blameworthy of intersexual assault.

Speaking astir her determination to waive her anonymity, Ms Pelicot writes: “I didn’t want to beryllium unsocial immoderate more. So galore strangers had shown maine specified kindness, made maine consciousness invited erstwhile I had thing left. I wasn’t frightened of being seen now, of group knowing.

“’Shame has to alteration sides’ – the words I’d first heard complete a decade ago, a motto supporting women who had survived rape and home violence, came into my caput for illustration a refrain, arsenic if mini blades were honing my thoughts. Everyone needs to spot nan faces of nan rapists. They should beryllium nan ones to bent their heads successful shame, not me.”

Rejecting a closed hearing, nan norm for intersexual offence trials, would “change everything”, she remembers being told by her lawyers Stéphane Babonneau and Antoine Camus.

To hole for nan trial, Ms Pelicot says she had to position nan horrific videos of nan attacks, taken from her then-husband’s devices, that she had truthful acold avoided watching. She recalls seeing her assemblage arsenic a “corpse” and “doll made of soma and blood”, saying: “I didn’t spot my life there. They had chased it away, driven it retired of my body.”

She reflects past connected nan world-shattering infinitesimal erstwhile she was first told by constabulary what had happened to her. In some instances, she says she kept thinking, “It happened to me, but it wasn’t me.”

Ms Pelicot initially believed she was astatine nan constabulary position connected 2 November 2020 because her then-husband had been summoned by constabulary aft a supermarket information defender caught him secretly taking videos up women’s skirts.

The serviceman mildly revealed nan existent logic why Ms Pelicot was location and began by asking her questions specified arsenic what her then-husband’s characteristic was like, pinch her describing him initially arsenic “a beautiful guy”.

He past asked whether nan mates ever swapped partners. “I heard myself stammering that swinging was inconceivable for me,” she said. “I couldn’t carnivore different men rubbing me. I needed feelings.”

Then nan serviceman warned her: “I americium going to show you photos and videos that are not going to please you.” After that, her world fell apart.

She recalls: “The serviceman says a number. He tells maine fifty-­three men had travel to my location to rape me. I inquire for water. My rima is paralysed.” She recalls being incapable to judge nan inert female successful nan photos was her.

Later, she remembers lying successful furniture awake astatine night, “so angry that I hadn’t noticed anything” and going complete memories, including a infinitesimal erstwhile she believes she came adjacent to discovering nan truth, backmost successful 2013.

She says she noticed immoderate “odd, discoloured blotches for illustration splashes of bleach, indelible, inexplicable” connected trousers she had precocious bought and joked to Pelicot: “You haven’t been drugging me, person you?”

“He burst into tears. ‘How could you perchance opportunity specified a thing?’ I was instantly flooded pinch guilt. He was hurt. I instantly apologised.”

Ms Pelicot is still grappling pinch unanswered questions to this day. Her hubby was recovered blameworthy connected each charges and fixed nan maximum imaginable condemnation of 20 years successful prison.

She writes: “I request answers; he owes maine that much. I will talk to nan man I utilized to deliberation I was joined to. If he is still there, he will reply me. What does he person to lose, fixed that he is going to walk nan remainder of his life successful prison?

“And if, successful fact, that man vanished a agelong clip ago, if each that remains of him is his pathological request for powerfulness and manipulation, I will consciousness that too. Either way, it will thief maine move on.”

She has peculiar questions astir 2 acold cases she was informed successful 2022 her then-husband was a fishy in, 1 an attempted rape he later admitted to, and another, a murder, which he denies.

She besides wants answers surrounding their girl Caroline Darian, aft Pelicot was recovered blameworthy of signaling and disseminating images of a intersexual quality of her.

Ms Pelicot writes: “The photographs are abject, showing her father’s unbearable incestuous regard connected his girl while she slept.”

The lawsuit put nan full family’s relationships nether immense strain, but particularly that of mother and daughter. In her ain book her girl released past year, I’ll Never Call Him Dad Again, Ms Darian said she felt she was nan “forgotten” unfortunate of nan trial.

Her begetter denied sexually assaulting aliases raping his girl during nan trial. Ms Pelicot declined to reply erstwhile she was asked successful tribunal if she supported her daughter’s claims.

Ms Darian went connected to impeach her mother of “abandoning her” by not supporting her ain allegations and successful interviews past twelvemonth says she nary longer speaks to her mother often arsenic a result.

But nan family is slow healing, according to Ms Pelicot, while adding she has built a wider web of supporters astir her.

She describes her female friendships arsenic being important during this period, while nan crowds of women who shouted her connected extracurricular nan courthouse successful Avignon “saved me”.

The number of supporters grew and grew complete nan people of nan trial, until nan French grandma became nan awesome of a world movement, embodying her powerful connection that it is nan perpetrators who should consciousness shame for intersexual crimes – and refusing to beryllium reduced to being a victim.

In her concluding remarks, she writes: “I suppose that’s why I decided to brave nan court. Everyone was expecting to spot a wreck of a female arrive. But that was not what happened.

“I still knew why I had been successful emotion pinch Dominique and, arsenic I told nan court, I will astir apt walk nan remainder of my life puzzling done my memories successful bid to salvage a fewer bully ones.

“I will ne'er beryllium reduced to my tortured body; that is not wherever my psyche is, it’s not who I was arsenic a girl, nor is it nan female I person become.”

‘A Hymn to Life’ is published by Bodley Head and is disposable now