Shame must change sides': French mass rape survivor emerges as feminist icon

Walking into court each day with her head held high, the ex-wife of a Frenchman on trial for orchestrating her mass rape in her own bed for almost a decade has become a feminist icon.

With her now trademark auburn bob and dark glasses, 71-year-old Gisele Pelicot has become a figurehead in the battle against the use of drugs to commit sexual abuse.

Her life was shattered in 2020 when she discovered that her partner of five decades had for years been secretly administering her large doses of tranquilisers to rape her and invite dozens of strangers to join him.

But she has decided not to hide and demanded the trial of Dominique Pelicot, 71, and 50 co-defendants since September 2 be open to the public because, as she has said through one of her lawyers, it should be up to her alleged abusers -- not her -- to be ashamed.

"It's a way of saying... shame must change sides," her attorney Stephane Babonneau said as the trial opened.

Since then, feminist activists have held up her stylised portrait by Belgian artist Aline Dessine, daubed with the words "Shame is changing sides", to show support at protests.

The artist with 2.5 million followers on TikTok has given up all rights to the image.

 'Very brave'  

Thousands protested in cities across France on Saturday in support of Gisele Pelicot and demanding an end to rape.

"Gisele for all, all for Gisele," read one hand-drawn poster at a gathering in the southern city of Marseille.

A day earlier, outside the courthouse in the southern town of Avignon, protester Nadege Peneau said she was full of admiration for the trial's main plaintiff.

"What she's doing is very brave," she said.

"She's speaking up for so many children and women, and even men" who have been abused, she added.

Gisele Pelicot in August obtained a divorce from her husband, who has confessed to the abuse after meticulously documenting it with photos and videos.

She has moved away from the southern town of Mazan where, in her own words, for years he treated her like "a piece of meat" or a "rag doll".

She now uses her maiden name, but during the trial has asked the media to use her former name as a married woman.

Her lawyer Antoine Camus said she had transformed from a devoted wife and retiree, who loved walks and choir singing, into a woman in the seventies ready for a battle.

"I will have to fight till the end," she told the press on September 5, in her only public statement outside court in the first days of the four-month trial.

"Obviously it's not an easy exercise and I can feel attempts to trap me with certain questions," she added calmly.

  'Not in vain'  

The daughter of a member of the military, Gisele Pelicot was born on December 7, 1952 in Germany, returning to France with her family when she was five.

When she was only nine, her mother, aged just 35, died of cancer.

"In my head, I was already 15, I was already a little woman," she said, describing growing up "without much love".

Her older brother Michel died of a heart attack aged 43, before her 20th birthday.

She has said she was never one to publicly show emotions.

"In the family, we hide tears and we share laughter," one of her lawyers had reported her as saying.

She met Dominique Pelicot, her future husband and rapist, in 1971.

She had dreamt of becoming a hairdresser but instead studied to be a typist. After a few years temping, she joined France's national electricity company EDF, ending her career in a logistics service for its nuclear power plants.

At home, she looked after her three children, then seven grandchildren, and did a little gymnastics.

Only when the police caught her husband filming up women's skirts in a supermarket in 2020 did she find out the true reason behind her troubling memory lapses.

Camus, her lawyer, said his client "never wanted to be a role model".

"She just wants all this not to be in vain," he said.