Photo: Christophe Simon Agence France-Presse “It’s very emotional,” said Gisèle Pelicot, the victim of some 200 rapes, half of which were attributed to her ex-husband, as she entered the courtroom. She achieved feminist icon status after refusing to have the trial held behind closed doors.
David Courbet – Agence France-Presse in Avignon
Published at 7:40 a.m. Updated at 3:44 p.m.
- Europe
The maximum sentence of 20 years in prison was requested on Monday against Dominique Pelicot, a septuagenarian who, for a decade, drugged, raped and then had his wife raped by dozens of men recruited on the Internet in the south-east of France.
After eleven weeks of hearings, this trial with international repercussions is entering its final stretch.
Before the criminal court of Vaucluse, in Avignon (south), the attorney general Jean-François Mayet considered that the heart of this trial was “male domination over women” and that its challenge was to “fundamentally change the relationship between men and women”.
Before the professional magistrates, the public prosecutor began his indictment with the “conductor” of this decade of rapes, Dominique Pelicot, asking for 20 years of imprisonment, the maximum sentence incurred.
“It is both a lot and too little. Too little in view of the seriousness of the acts that were committed and repeated”, insisted the deputy prosecutor Laure Chabaud.
She stressed the “full and entire” responsibility, according to her, of Mr. Pelicot, the common denominator of the 50 co-accused recruited on the Internet to whom he had delivered his now ex-wife, previously knocked out with anxiolytics, at their home in Mazan between July 2011 and October 2020.
Dominique Pelicot has never hidden his responsibility, calling himself a “rapist.” “I am guilty of what I did […] I ruined everything, I lost everything. I have to pay,” he said in September.
However, he appeared affected on Monday. “He is devastated,” assured his lawyer, Béatrice Zavarro, during a recess in the hearing.
Concerning Caroline, the couple's daughter, convinced that she too was the victim of rape or sexual assault by her father, Laure Chabaud, on the other hand, considered that no evidence had been found that would allow her “suffering to find a legal translation.”
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“Debasement”
Evoking a “personality structured in a perverse way”, Laure Chabaud considered that Mr. Pelicot, 71, was “seeking his own pleasure” through “submission, humiliation, or even the degradation of his wife.”
“The lack of consent could not have been ignored by the accused,” insisted Deputy Prosecutor Chabaud. Pulling the rug out from under the arguments sometimes put forward by some defense lawyers since the start of the trial on September 2, she assured that it was “not conceivable that Gisèle Pelicot could have voluntarily ingested these anxiolytics.”
“It’s a lot of emotion,” said Ms. Pelicot, the victim of some 200 rapes, half of which were attributed to her ex-husband, as she entered the courtroom.
Gisèle Pelicot, 71, achieved the status of feminist icon after refusing to allow the trial to take place behind closed doors, “so that the shame would change sides.”
By coincidence, this indictment begins on the occasion of the International Day of the Struggle against violence against women.
This case “will mark a before and after,” said French Prime Minister Michel Barnier, during a visit to the Maison des femmes at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Paris. Chemical submission detection kits will be reimbursed by health insurance “in several departments” of the country, on an experimental basis and according to a schedule yet to be defined, he announced.
Against Dominique Pelicot's “disciple,” Jean-Pierre M., who had reproduced the same procedure on his own wife, 17 years of criminal imprisonment were requested on Monday morning. He is the only accused not to be prosecuted for sexual assault on Gisèle Pelicot, but on his own wife.
No less than 10 years required for rape
Aged 26 to 74, most of the accused are being prosecuted for the same facts, namely aggravated rape of Gisèle Pelicot, and therefore all risk 20 years in prison.
The prosecution set the bar very high when addressing the first co-accused.
Against Joseph C., 69, the only one prosecuted for “group sexual assault” and not for rape or attempted rape, the public prosecutor thus requested a four-year prison sentence.
Then the demands grew in crescendo, at a rate of a quarter of an hour per accused: 10 years against 11 of them, 11 years against two others, then 12 years against four, 13 years against one.
Requests described as “staggering” and “out of proportion” by some defense lawyers, who criticized the prosecution during a recess of the session for having requested under the influence of “public opinion.”
“A lesson to the world whole »
Photo: Christophe Simon Agence France-Presse The demand of the feminist groups, who put up a banner Sunday evening in front of the court, is very clear: “20 years for each” of the accused.
Feminist groups put up a banner Sunday evening in front of the court demanding: “20 years for each” of the accused.
Covered almost worldwide, with 138 accredited media outlets including 57 foreign ones, this trial has an echo well beyond France's borders.
As the president of the Chilean Chamber of Deputies, Karol Cariola, testified again on Thursday, saluting “the courage and dignity” of Gisèle Pelicot, “an ordinary citizen who taught the whole world a lesson.”
And this weekend, tens of thousands of people marched throughout France to demand a “surge” against violence against women.
In the wake of this, on Monday morning, the French government announced the extension of the system allowing women victims of sexual violence to file a complaint in a hospital with an emergency or gynecological department.
After the indictment, the defense will have the floor until December 13. The verdict is expected on December 20 at the latest.