Justice for Gisèle Pelicot? 51 guilty verdicts don’t come close

If 2024 “belonged” to anyone, it was Gisèle Pelicot. The image of the 72-year-old grandmother sitting poised in a French courtroom as her 50 rapists were sentenced today is as indelible as the facts of the Avignon case are inexplicable. A man who for 10 years drugged and raped his wife in their Provencal home, then drove her to medical specialists for pelvic pain and memory loss. 49 men who, under cover of darkness, joined him in assaulting her—men identified as nurses and prison guards, firefighters and truck drivers, all living within a 31-mile radius of each other, ranging in age from 27 to 72 (“Monsieur -Tout-le-Monde,” as the French press called them). airtight and singularly horrifying, thousands upon thousands of images and videos of said rapes, neatly organized and cataloged in a hard drive file titled simply “abuse”—a pixelated who’s who of predatory perpetrators.

“It’s time for the macho, patriarchal society that trivializes rape to change,” Gisèle told the court during her final statement this week. “It’s time we changed the way we look at rape.” Her stark refusal to be either ashamed or embarrassed throughout her 15-week trial has done more, I think, to bring about that change than even she realizes. It is Gisèle who, despite the concern of those around her, chose to have a public trial; Also Gisèle, who actively pushed to have the photos and videos of her abuse shown in court. Journalists present have described them as excruciating to watch; I can’t believe the strength it must have taken for her to bear seeing them again.

But she persevered. And in some ways—and only in some ways—her decision to continue was vindicated. Today, bent over and crying, her husband, Dominique, “the monster of Avignon”, received the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for rape. Gisèle leaned her head against the courthouse wall as Judge Roger Arata handed down the sentence for her partner of five decades. And then, one by one, each and each of her other 49 rapists was found guilty of aggravated rape and/or sexual assault. Outside the courtroom, a gathered crowd held up a banner that read: la honte change de camp. The shame changes sides.

And yet: Almost all of Gisèle’s rapists, with the exception of her husband, received shorter sentences than the prosecutors had asked for. Six of them will walk free from court today, having either served their full sentence already or received a suspended sentence. The longest sentence, Dominique’s, was 15 years for Romain Vandevelde, a man who raped Gisèle six times and refused to use a condom even though he knew he was HIV positive. Jean-Pierre Marechal – the only accused who did not assault Gisèle, but rather used Dominique’s methods to rape his own wife – got 12 years. Sometimes Dominique joined him. Caroline Darian, Gisèle’s daughter, sitting in court and hearing the conditions read out, whispered the words: “This is not possible.”