Gisèle Pelicot returns to court after the trial made her an icon

The first day, Gisèle Pelicot climbed the steps of the Avignon courthouse in September 2024, she was a grandmother with anonymous retirement.

In a few weeks, this diminutive of 72 years – the victim at the center of the greatest rape test in French history, involving 51 men, of which her husband – had become a feminist icon.

It was seen for the last time in public when the verdicts – all guilty – were delivered in December. At that time, crowds of supporters sang his name.

Monday, Gisèle Pelicot returns to court, this time in Nîmes, for the appeal of the only 51 defendants to challenge her sentence: Husamettin Dogan, 44, a father married to one.

Between September and December of last year, Gisèle’s dark history has traveled the world. For more than a decade, she had been drugged unconscious by her husband Dominique and raped by dozens of men whom he had recruited in Internet cat rooms.

Dominique Pelicot filmed the assaults and carefully cataloged them on a hard drive, which allowed investigators to find the majority of the people involved. About 20 could not be identified and remain in freedom.

After a 16 -week trial, 46 men were found guilty of rape, two rape attempted and two of sexual assault. Dominique Pelicot received the maximum prison sentence of 20 years.

Husamettin Dogan’s call next week will, in fact, be a new trial. Gisèle’s rape videos will be presented again in court, and Pelicot will be present – this time, however, only as a witness.

Although she is not forced to do so, Gisèle will also attend the procedure.

“Everyone would have understood if she had not come because, well, she tries to resume a normal life,” said one of her lawyers, Stéphane Babonneau, at the BBC. “But she feels that she must be there and is responsible for being there until the end of the procedure.”

In December, Dogan was found guilty of aggravated rape and sentenced to nine years in prison. For health reasons, he has received a deferred childcare warrant and is not currently in prison. He would have called on both the guilt and the duration of his sentence.

As was the case for many of the 51 other men, Dogan’s defense depended on the argument that he could not be guilty of having raped Gisèle because he had not realized that she would be unconscious. Pelicot rejected this argument, saying that he had clearly indicated that the men he recruited online that his wife would be drugged.

In his statement to court last year, Dogan admitted to having told Pelicot that his wife “looked dead”. However, he vehemently rejected against the charges which were leveled to him. “I do not accept being labeled a rapist,” he protested. “It’s an overly heavy burden for me to wear.”

Although 16 other accused also initially submitted calls, Dogan was the only one to have advanced with this.

Unlike the first trial, Dogan’s call will be judged by a jury made up of nine public members who will decide on both of his conviction and the duration of his prison sentence.

If he loses his appeal, the huge resonance of the trial and the media coverage can mean that the jury ends up being less indulgent than the judges last December.

“It is a real risk and I think that is why so many men have removed their calls,” French magistrate Magali Lafourcade told the BBC.

She thinks that the case of Pelicot has had a significant effect on French society and that jurors are necessarily to understand the societal problems concerning rape and consent.

“It will be interesting to see what the accused offers,” she said. “He can try to show that he has learned lessons of feminism, or that he is not at risk for society. Many will also depend on the quality of his defense – and his lawyers know how much the company has evolved last year.”

The procedure, which will only last four days this time, should be combative.

Last year, Dogan’s lawyer Sylvie Menvielle suggested that rape videos showed a “three -sex game” and hinted that Gisèle could have been an accomplice.

The comments prompted an indignant Gisèle to leave the courtroom in the middle of the session for the second time of the trial, which she otherwise followed assiduous – as she should start again next week.

Although last year, she only addressed a courtyard, whenever she did, Gisèle said she was speaking to help other rape victims: “I want them to say: if Madame Pelicot did, I can too.”

Shame must change the victim’s sides to the attacker, she insisted. This reasoning was at the heart of his decision to renounce his anonymity, to open the trial to the media and the public, and to advance the videos of his rapes before the court.

It was a crucial decision, and the reason why the trial sparked global resonance. Since the verdicts were returned, Gisèle Pelicot was named one of the 100 most influential people in Time. She has also received numerous prizes, including the French Legion, and received a personal letter from Queen Camilla.

But overall, after these months in the eyes of the public, Gisèle was able to find the intimacy which had been refused for so long. Shortly after the end of the trial, she retired to the Ile de Ré, a small island off the Atlantic coast of France.

For a certain time, the only images of her to emerge were occasional selfies published by her son Florian on social networks, showing her sitting near the sea, radiating at the camera.

This private life did not last. Last spring, Glossy Paris Match magazine published photos of Paparazzi of her and her new partner walking on the Ile de Ré.

Many have noted that it was another example of personal images taken and shared without its consent. His legal team brought publication, arguing that Gisèle’s decision to renounce her anonymity for the duration of the trial did not mean abandoning his right to private life.

“It is a victim of rape who has become a public figure in spite of itself,” said his lawyer Antoine Camus. (The case was finally settled when Paris Match agreed to make donations to two associations that support victims of sexual violence.)

Gisèle Pelicot’s public visibility is not the only change since last year.

When the procedure started in September 2024, it was supported by its three adult children – Caroline, David and Florian. Now, the united family unit which entered the Avignon court last September is no longer.

David Pelicot and Caroline Darian called themselves the “forgotten victims” of the trial and next week in Nîmes, Gisèle will only be accompanied by Florian, the youngest of her children.

At the heart of the family split is a moment that rocked the field last November, when Gisèle was questioned about the photos found on the Pelicot computer showing their semi-nude daughter Caroline, apparently asleep and carrying unknown underwear.

Caroline Darian has always insisted that the photos prove that her father drugged and also assaulted her – and in March, charged him against him. He has always denied having sexually assaulted his daughter.

Caroline recalled how, on the stand, Gisèle refused to deal with incest accusations against her husband. “And it is as if the ground opened under my feet. His silence said a lot. He marked a point of no return.”

“I was her only daughter, she shouldn’t have let go of my hand, especially not then,” wrote Ms. Darian. Devastated by what she saw as the “rejection” of her mother, she left the courtroom.

Ms. Darian – who has since launched a battle against “chemical submission” (sexual assault facilitated by drugs) – said that she and Gisèle were no longer talking, and she should not attend the trial of next week.

Her older brother David, who was expressed in her support for her, will also be out.

Her son Nathan, now 19, brought charges against Dominique Pelicot after the trial has triggered childhood memories of sexual abuse. When the charges were released earlier this year for lack of evidence, Caroline said she was “indignant and disgusted”.

“It’s as if they said: your pain exists but … it can’t be recognized, it will never end.”

For her, Nathan and other victims who cannot present the evidence of Gisèle, Caroline wrote: “There will be no truth, no justice, no reparation.”

In the same way that last year’s trial reverberated far beyond the Avignon courtroom, causing urgent conversations at the national level, consent and gender violence, the crimes of Dominique Pelicot crossed the family, heartbreaking.

The images taken on the day of opening the trial in September 2024 highlight the seismic changes that have engulfed the pelicots in the last 13 months.

They show how the Avignon courthouse room was almost empty while Gisèle and her family entered for the first time. In a few days, he would become a teeming hub of activists, journalists and public members – crowds that will surely meet at the new court hearing in Nîmes.

One of the photos shows how close the Pelicot family was: sitting on a small bench in court, huddled together as one, waiting for the procedure to start.

Under the protective embrace of her brothers, Caroline, leaning forward, kisses Gisèle on the cheek.