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AVIGNON, France (CN) — Most of the 51 men on trial for raping Gisèle Pelicot weave through the Avignon Judicial Courthouse inconspicuously. They brush past the crowds that show up daily to support her, give a nod to the security guards watching the courtroom and walk inside. They leave as free men.
Every few days, women are escorted into the courtroom to testify in support of their friends, brothers, sons, boyfriends and husbands. They plead to the panel of five judges, often through tears and shaky voices, to see that the men are good — and certainly not rapists.
Most cases of sexual assault in France are committed by “ordinary” people, rather than hooded men who lurk in dark alleyways. While the trial brings newfound exposure to that fact, it also shows peoples’ resistance to accept it.
“It is a story that will undoubtedly be able to confirm, in a striking way, what we have already known for several years — that the perpetrators of sexual violence are ordinary people,” Veronique Le Goaziou, a sociologist and researcher specializing in sexual violence at the Mediterranean Sociology Laboratory, told Courthouse News. “When we see the 51 accused, they are of various ages, from various social backgrounds, they have different jobs, different marital situations — it is a sort of sample of the French male population, in fact.”
Dominique Pelicot, Gisèle Pelicot’s ex-husband, invited over 80 strangers to rape her while she was unconscious. The method was systematic: He contacted people through coco.fr, a site that has since been taken down, on a channel called “without her knowledge.” He invited them to the Pelicots’ home in Mazan, a Provençal town with a population of 6,000. Before their arrival, he would crush antianxiety pills into Gisèle Pelicot’s food and drinks to knock her out. He took thousands of videos of the rapes, which is ultimately how he got caught.
The men on trial include truck drivers, a journalist and a prison warden. There are connections between them. Quentin H., the warden, watched over Dominique Pelicot when he was first detained. On Wednesday, he told the court that he knew it was only a matter of time before he’d be taken into custody himself. Some of the men knew each other casually from around town. One man worked at the Pelicots’ local bakery.
In the opening weeks of the trial, defense lawyer Guillaume de Palma sparked outrage when he told the court “there’s rape, and then there’s rape.”
Gisèle Pelicot said, “There are no different types of rape,” and “rape is rape.”
“Most rapes are not street rapes, but rapes that are committed in the home … . The parties involved are nothing other than Mr. and Mrs. Everyman — that they are ordinary people, there is no monster; there is no heroine either,” Anne Bouillon, a prominent French lawyer for survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, told Courthouse News.
“On Pelicot’s side, they are people like everyone else, and this obviously raises questions on the social structures and the way in which we are organized around a system that perpetuates male domination. That’s what we can learn,” she said.
In the courtroom on Wednesday, a woman was escorted to the stand. She had long brown hair, red acrylic nails and wore gold bangles on her wrists. Sixteen months ago, she met Patrice N., one of the accused, at a party. They started dating and she decided to stay with him after learning about the accusations.
“He treats me like a princess,” she told the courtroom.
Patrice N., an electrician, took the stand on Thursday. He met Dominique Pelicot after having a few glasses of pastis, the traditional French anise liqueur, with friends. Before arriving at the Pelicots’ house, he showered and cleaned himself up.
During questioning, he was visibly agitated and waved his hands in the air, saying that he couldn’t believe what happened. Though he maintained that he thought he was participating in a sex game, he felt something was off when he left the house. He said that he didn’t want to waste his time reporting the events to police.
“Do you think it’s normal in a sex game to put your sex in a snoring woman’s mouth?” Stéphane Babonneau, one of Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyers, asked. He did not have a response.
His attitude remained dismissive and blasé. When asked if he thought he committed an involuntary rape, he laughed incredulously.
“No!” he said, shaking his head.
Judges decided to play the video of Patrice N. assaulting Gisèle Pelicot. The footage is used as a last resort, usually when defendants show some form of denial. The room was silent.
Antoine Camus, Gisèle Pelicot’s second lawyer, said that Patrice N. was displaying a concerning level of disassociation, acting as if the man in the video was not him. Camus asked him to recognize the reality that he was the man who penetrated Gisèle Pelicot without her knowledge or consent, which is a rape.
Patrice N. animatedly said that he has been explaining the importance of consent to his friends’ sons, and warning them that what he is undergoing could happen without it.
After almost three hours of interrogations, Patrice N. slipped out of the courtroom during the lunch break, strolling outside.
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