Gisele Pelicot says she has ‘no fear’ of a new trial if some of her rapists appeal – but reveals why she does not want to be an ‘icon’

By alex On Dec 20, 2024

Gisele Pelicot, the French woman whose ex-husband was jailed for 20 years for orchestrating and committing mass rapes against her with dozens of strangers, has no fear of a new trial if there is an appeal, her lawyer said Friday, but warned that she does not want to be seen as an ‘icon’.

The 72-year-old has been hailed as a hero and feminist icon for her courage and dignity in the over three-month historic trial that ended Thursday with all 51 defendants, including her ex-husband Dominique Pelicot, being convicted.

Gisele Pelicot said afterwards that she respected the verdicts of the court, although her elder son on Friday said that while satisfied with his father’s sentence, he was ‘disappointed’ by the leniency of the other verdicts.

After Gisele Pelicot described the process as a ‘difficult ordeal’, she risks having to go through another trial, with two defendants already lodging an appeal.

Beatrice Zavarro, Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer, said he has not ruled out doing the same, which would mean challenging his 20-year prison sentence for orchestrating and committing the mass rape of his now-ex wife.

Under French law, defendants have an automatic right to force a retrial through right of appeal.

Speaking outside court after the sentences were handed out yesterday, Dominuque Pelicot’s lawyer said her client was ‘stunned’ at the judges’ decision to hand him the maximum sentence, as well as the suggestion that he could be kept in longer if he was still considered a security threat.

Zavarro noted that no decision had yet been made on whether Pelicot will lodge an appeal, which he is able to do for the next ten days.

Gisele Pelicot has no fear of a new trial if there is an appeal, her lawyer said Friday

She risks having to go through another trial, with two defendants already lodging an appeal and the lawyer of her ex-husband not ruling out doing the same

Meanwhile, one of Gisele Pelicot’s lawyers Stephane Babonneau said that she is not afraid of facing a new trial.

‘If it were to happen, she has already indicated to us that she would face it – if she is healthy, obviously, since she is a lady who is now 72,’ Babonneau told France Inter radio.

‘In any case, she has no fear of it, that is what she told us.’

Asked about his client’s state of mind, Babonneau replied that ‘she was very happy to go home. She is very relieved’.

But he warned against seeing Gisele Pelicot as an ‘icon’ even as she is applauded by world leaders for her courage in ordering the trial to be open to the public to raise awareness of sexual violence against women and drug-induced rape.

‘What she doesn’t want is for other victims to think ‘this lady has extraordinary strength, I couldn’t do that’,’ he said.

‘She doesn’t want to be seen as an icon. She doesn’t want to be seen as someone extraordinary. And in reality, she is someone who remains very simple and who has decided to try to live her life in the most normal way,’ he added.

Dominique Pelicot, who had confessed to the crimes, was found guilty by the court in the southern city of Avignon and sentenced to the maximum of 20 years in prison.

Gisele Pelicot, the victim of a mass rape orchestrated by her then-husband Dominique Pelicot at their home in the southern French town of Mazan, talks to journalists, surrounded by relatives and her lawyers, after the verdict in the trial for Dominique Pelicot and 50 co-accused, at the courthouse in Avignon, France, December 19, 2024

This court-sketch made on December 19, 2024 in Avignon shows the court during the hearing of the verdict of the court that sentenced Dominique Pelicot to the maximum term of 20 years jail

Gisele Pelicot leaves the courthouse surrounded by French police and journalists after the verdict in the trial for Dominique Pelicot and 50 co-accused, in Avignon, France, December 19, 2024

Serial rapist Dominique Pelicot is likely to die behind bars after being sentenced to 20 years in prison for the campaign of abuse he and dozens of strangers waged against his wife Gisele

For almost a decade, Dominique Pelicot had recruited strangers online and invited them to the family home to rape Gisele Pelicot, who had been heavily drugged with sleeping pills.

He also took videos of the rapes and took meticulous records, which were used as evidence in the trial.

Dozens of other defendants – the men who visited the Pelicot family home to rape Gisele Pelicot as she lay unconscious after being drugged by her husband – were handed terms of between three and 15 years.

Six of the jail terms were partly suspended, while six men walked free after the trial due to the terms of their sentencing.

Gisele’s children hit out at the ‘low’ sentences for some of the men who raped their mother.

They deplored ‘it’s not possible’, as one convicted rapist was handed just five years.

‘As for Dominique Pelicot I am satisfied with the verdict,’ Gisele Pelicot’s son David, told broadcaster BFMTV. ‘Now he must pay the bill for the atrocities he committed to our mother.’

He added: ‘I am a bit more disappointed concerning what the other accused were given.’

David Pelicot said he and his sister Caroline and younger brother Florian were ‘quite surprised’ with the sentences given to the other accused, saying they had been given less than the national average term for rape.

In a selfie snapped by her cruel and abusive spouse, Gisele is seen beaming at the camera held by her then-spouse at a sun-soaked marina

Gisele Pelicot arrives in front of the courthouse before a verdict in the Pelicot case is delivered on December 19, 2024 in Avignon, France

A man hiding his face is surrounded by French police, journalists and protesters as he leaves after the verdict in the trial for Dominique Pelicot

He said Dominique Pelicot would ‘take his secrets to his grave’ and added that despite the over three months of trial ‘we have many questions to which we do not have answers’.

David Pelicot said there remained the question of whether Dominique Pelicot had also assaulted Caroline. He said his son had now filed a complaint against his grandfather for groping which could lead to a trial if accepted by prosecutors.

World leaders including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had on Thursday paid tribute to Gisele Pelicot and they were joined Friday by French President Emmanuel Macron.

‘Thank you Gisele Pelicot,’ Macron wrote on X. ‘For all of us, because your dignity and your courage have moved and inspired France and the world.’

In a sign of the international resonance of the trial, Gisele Pelicot’s face dominated the front pages of newspapers across Europe.

‘She may not have imagined that she was trading anonymity for the status of a feminist icon,’ The Times of London said in an editorial.

‘The dignity with which she has conducted herself stands in dramatic contrast to the depraved transgressions of her attackers who cowered behind masks as they entered court,’ it added.

Firefighters, soldiers, lorry drivers, a DJ and a journalist were among those found guilty of raping and sexually abusing Gisele Pelicot at the behest of her husband over the course of a decade – all without her knowledge.

Gisele’s children hit out at the ‘low’ sentences for some of the men who raped their mother

Defendants cowered behind masks and beneath hoods as they entered the court this morning, with several emerging again this afternoon after being given sentences equivalent to or less than those they have already served.

Despite the possibility for an appeal, Dominique Pelicot could face another shameful trial as investigators believe the depraved 72-year-old may be responsible for the rape and murder of Sophie Narme, a real estate agent, in 1991.

Detectives are probing the cold case that bears a shocking resemblance to an attempted rape of 23-year-old real estate agent known as Marion in 1999.

She fought her attacker off, and Pelicot’s DNA was later recovered at the scene – though he maintains he did not try to rape her.

It comes as psychologists who interviewed Pelicot explained his complex psychological issues, positing that sexual abuse he claimed to have experienced as a child likely ‘sharpened’ traits that led him to become the man who so heinously abused his own wife.