covers France’s mass-rape case

France’s trial of a man who drugged his wife so dozens of strangers could rape her while she was unconscious has been both ordinary and extraordinary, AFP journalists covering it say.

The details of the case have horrified audiences in France and abroad since the trial began on September 2, drawing renewed attention to the widespread crime of rape and the issue of consent.

But it has also thrust its main victim, 72-year-old Gisele Pelicot, into the spotlight as a feminist hero demanding that a patriarchal society change its attitude towards sex crimes.

Dominique Pelicot, 72, has admitted drugging his then-wife with sleeping pills from 2011 to 2020 so men he recruited online could rape her in her own bed and meticulously document the abuse on video footage.

As the trial draws to a close with verdicts expected on Thursday, AFP journalists covering it say it has raised questions both about gender relations and how to sensitively report horrific abuse.

Video journalist Viken Kantarci remembers the first day of the trial.

“Gisele Pelicot appeared and we knew that, like us, she was discovering all these faces – the faces of the men who had raped her – for the first time,” said Kantarci, who covered the story with colleague Fabien Novial for AFPTV.

“We were quickly thrown into the atmosphere of what the trial would be: something both quite ordinary in terms of the type of people we saw, but also out of the ordinary because of how many of them there were and the scale of alleged crimes,” he said.

In addition to Dominique Pelicot, the other accused, aged 27 to 74, have come from all walks of life and included an unemployed man, a truck driver, a journalist, a firefighter, an engineer and an electrician.

All are accused of raping, attempting to rape or, in one case, touching Gisele Pelicot, except for one who has been accused of repeatedly abusing his own wife after drugging her with Dominique Pelicot’s help.

Several have admitted to rape, but many have maintained that Dominique Pelicot manipulated them and they believed they were participating in a couple’s fantasy.

– ‘Anonymous victim of hero’ –

Many had expected the trial to be held behind closed doors.

But Gisele Pelicot demanded on her first day that hearings be open to the public. She argued that it should be up to abusers – not victims – to feel shame.

David Courbet, one of AFP’s text journalists who has been reporting from inside the courtroom, said the decision changed everything.

Gisele Pelicot’s election “enabled the trial to exist and hopefully set its mark on history”, he said.

AFP initially used only the main victim’s first name and the initial of her last name to protect her family’s privacy.

But after she spoke to the media three days into the trial and said she would fight her corner to the end, the news agency decided to publish her full surname with the consent of her family’s lawyers.

While Gisele Pelicot has since divorced her husband and returned to using her maiden name, she has decided to use the surname that some of her children and grandchildren carried during the trial.

“She went from anonymous victim to hero, with a political, universal message,” Courbet said.

As news of the trial spread, Gisele Pelicot, her fringed bob and round sunglasses inspired art and messages of support in Avignon and other French cities, but also abroad.

The city of Avignon began to beat to the rhythm of the trial, with repeated feminist protests outside the courthouse and restaurants often fully booked for lunch.

Journalists quickly found out who ate where: which restaurants served the civic feasts and which fed the defendants.

“From just a few cameras at the start of the trial, other French and foreign crews began to arrive in the following days,” said video journalist Kantarci, listing in particular British, American and Spanish media.

In the hall outside the courtroom, they rushed in every day to capture images or audio as civil parties, defendants and their lawyers came and went to hearings.

From as early as By 5:45 a.m. – two and a half hours before the courthouse opens its doors – members of the public have been lining up outside to try to grab one of about 30 seats in a single room, broadcasting hearings via video link, sometimes without success.

– Photographer in awe –

Barred from the courtroom itself, AFP photographers and video journalists have tried to capture a sense of the proceedings from the sidelines, capturing the chants of support for Gisele Pelicot outside the court and speaking to villagers in Mazan, where the Pelicots used to live, as well as to sociologists.

Inside the court, Benoit Peyrucq has sketched those taking the stand or sitting in the dock. His sketches of Dominique Pelicot have been among the most popular with AFP clients.

Just outside, AFP has seen Gisele Pelicot arrive with her head held high to be greeted by applause or even bunches of flowers, while her alleged abusers have tried to avoid cameras and hide their features under hoodies, baseball caps or surgical face masks.

Kantarci, the video journalist, said several had even been “aggressive towards the media”.

Photographer Christophe Simon, who has been with AFP for four decades, said the trial had required more sensitivity than other stories.

“We gave Gisele Pelicot and her family a lot of space because we could imagine what they were going through,” he said.

Instead, day after day, he said, he built a relationship with Gisele Pelicot and her lawyers, greeting them and exchanging pleasantries.

“One day I even tripped and she helped me up,” he said.

On October 23, her lawyers agreed to him taking her portrait. She has not accepted any other such request since.

They met first thing in the afternoon in the garden of the hotel where she was staying.

The veteran war reporter told Gisele Pelicot that he was very “impressed” by her courage.

“She looked surprised and interested,” said the photojournalist, whose portrait of Gisele Pelicot staring directly into his lens has since been published worldwide.

– Disturbing footage –

As the AFP’s then bureau chief for the southern city of Marseille and the surrounding area, including Avignon for most of the trial, Isabelle Wesselingh coordinated much of her coverage with her deputy chief Olivier Lucazeau.

“The repeated rape of a woman is really shocking and you also realize the extent to which the case has torn a family apart,” she said.

But also “we had to remember that a trial requires a two-sided debate, fair coverage of the defense’s point of view and a certain questioning of things – all without underplaying the suffering”.

Following the AFP’s guidelines for covering sexual abuse, the team prepared by discussing the best language “to avoid voyeurism and remember the dignity of victims while covering incidents that were sometimes truly disgusting”, she added.

Text journalists also discussed how to prevent post-traumatic stress with the AFP occupational doctor before the trial started.

This was especially helpful after judges, at the request of the civil parties, allowed journalists and members of the public to view the graphic videos Dominique Pelicot filmed of strangers abusing his wife.

David Courbet says he realized when he saw the footage how important it was for it to be seen.

“They speak for themselves,” he said.

To cope with their brutality, he said, he tried to focus on the wallpaper or the news bulletin you could hear in the background.

Philippe Siuberski, another text reporter covering the trial, said Gisele Pelicot was “sleeping and unresponsive”.

“You could clearly hear the snoring,” said the journalist, who is usually based in the southern city of Montpellier.

“We do our job as journalists. But it’s not always very nice to witness,” he said.

“I would watch two to three seconds (of the footage) and then go back to my notes or see how Dominique Pelicot or Gisele Pelicot reacted,” he said.

“More than the words, it’s the images that stay with you,” said the journalist, who also covered the 2004 trial of Belgian child rapist and murderer Marc Dutroux.

– ‘Thank her’ –

Due to staff availability, it was mostly men who covered the mass rape case for the AFP.

“Ideally it would have been good to have a man and a woman, but we had to plan according to who was available and who might be reluctant due to the nature of the case,” says Wesselingh.

But she said it was “interesting to have men confront these questions about masculinity and the behavior of 50 ordinary men,” she said.

Courbet, the text reporter, said he hopes the trial will help men “think more about consent”.

“The trial has forced us men to think about our past, present and especially future behaviour,” he said.

His colleague Siuberski said he was most impressed by Gisele Pelicot’s strength in “never deviating from what she wanted to say”, even though she could so easily have been overwhelmed by what happened.

Kantarci, the video reporter, said it was hard not to be moved by all that Gisele Pelicot had accomplished.

“As a journalist, I probably shouldn’t, but I want to thank her,” he said.

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