Gisèle Pelicot, who has been praised around the world after publicly testifying against her husband and dozens of other men who raped her, has been awarded France’s top civic honor. Pelicot, 72, was named knight of the Legion of Honour on a list announced before France’s Bastille Day on July 14.
The largest mass trial in modern French history ended in mid-December 2024 with 51 perpetrators found guilty of at least one charge. The 3½-month trial captured the world’s attention with its shocking depravity. Over nine years, Pelicot’s husband repeatedly drugged her and invited other men to rape her unconscious body while he videoed. In all, she was raped close to 100 times by 84 different men. Thirty-three men remain unidentified.
As 51 men went to trial, Pelicot chose to waive her anonymity. Her lawyers warned her that not only would there be intense media attention, but she would find herself the target of attacks, both in and out of the courtroom. They were right.
Pelicot faced an onslaught of accusations from 40 defense lawyers. One asked her if she considered herself an exhibitionist after pointing to an image of her lying on a bed, drugged and unconscious. One wondered why she didn’t show more anger toward her husband and another wondered why she didn’t cry more. According to The Guardian, even after all 51 defendants were found guilty, one defense lawyer called the women protesting outside the courthouse “hysterical tricoteuses” — a reference to the women who watched and knitted as the guillotine fell during the French Revolution.
Daphné, 42, a writer from Montpelier who was outside the Avignon courthouse in December, was appalled by the comment. “That shows that this is just the first step in a battle, and the battle goes on. There’s a real denial in society of male violence against women,” she said.
Le Figaro newspaper reported that 35 men said they did not consider their actions to be rape, and only 14, when confronted with the images, said they regretted what they did.
Nevertheless, Pelicot pressed forward. Over the course of the trial, she seemed to grow in confidence and strength. She stopped wearing sunglasses indoors. She put the shame she felt where it belonged: on the perpetrators. “Shame,” she said, “must change sides.” She said she wanted to go public so that “all women who (are) victims of rape can say to themselves ‘Madame Pelicot did it, we can do it.’ I don’t want them to feel ashamed anymore,” she insisted during the trial. “The shame isn’t ours to feel,” she added. “It’s theirs.”
French President Emmanuel Macron has publicly paid tribute to Pelicot as a trailblazer, adding that her “dignity and courage moved and inspired France and the world”. In addition to the Legion of Honor Macron awarded her, Pelicot also received Normandy’s Prix de Liberté in June. The €25,000 ($29,100) that came with the Normandy prize is going to the victims association in Avignon that helped her during the trial.
At the Avignon Festival last week, a four-hour play told the story of the trial. By the French playwright Servane Dècle and the Swiss director Milo Rau, “The Pelicot Trial” distilled into four hours the nearly four-month trial that rocked France. The play took place in Avignon, where the trial took place, it used real testimony from the case, and one of the case’s expert psychiatrists, Laurent Layet, read the diagnoses and analysis of the defendants he delivered in court months ago. It also had the backing of Pelicot’s lawyers and feminist groups.
Since the trial, Pelicot has maintained a very low profile, giving no interviews and attending no public events, in an attempt to rebuild a life. She has moved far from Provence in southern France and has no plans to speak publicly until the final appeal process concludes in October. According to her lawyer, a memoir detailing Gisèle Pelicot’s story, “A Hymn to Life,” will be published early next year.
She said of her decision to write the book, “I am immensely grateful for the extraordinary support I have received since the beginning of the trial. I now want to tell my story in my own words. Through this book, I hope to convey a message of strength and courage to all those who are subjected to difficult ordeals. May they never feel shame. And in time, may they even learn to savor life again and find peace.”