Five unanswered questions from the trial

French rape survivor Gisèle Pelicot walked out of a courthouse in southern France for the last time on Thursday after her ex-husband was jailed for 20 years for drugging and raping her, and inviting Dozens of strangers abused her for nearly a decade.

Dominique Pelicot, 72, was found guilty of all charges by a judge in Avignon. He is being tried along with 50 other men, all of whom were found guilty of at least one crime, although their prison terms were less than what prosecutors sought.

Although the trial has ended, questions remain surrounding the Pelicot case and what will happen next.

When she walked up the steps of the Avignon courthouse for the first time in September, no one knew the name Gisèle Pelicot. Over the course of the next 15 weeks, her reputation as a rape victim who refused to be ashamed of what happened to her grew rapidly.

By the time she left court on the day ThursdayHundreds of crowds chanted her name and her image appeared on the front pages of newspapers around the world.

Now she is probably one of the most famous women in France. This means that although she has changed her name, she will not be able to return to the anonymity that served her so well as she tried to rebuild her life after her husband’s crimes been revealed.

Gisèle is not the first person whose unimaginable suffering has turned her into an icon. At great personal cost, she became the symbol of a war she never chose. So it seems unlikely that she would want to be an outspoken activist against gender-based violence or a prominent feminist figure. Rather, she can return to what she always said were her solace: music, long walks and chocolate – as well as her seven grandchildren.

“At the beginning of the trial, she said: ‘If I last two weeks it will be a lot.’ In the end, she had to serve three and a half months,” said her lawyer Stephane Babonneau. “Now she is at peace and everything is over with relief.”

A few days after Dominique Pelicot’s crimes came to light, his daughter Caroline Darian was summoned to the police station and shown photos of an apparently unconscious woman wearing strange underwear. She later said her life “stopped” when she realized she was looking at photos of herself.

Her father always denied touching her, but Caroline – whose suffering and devastation were evident throughout many of the trials – has said she would never trust him and accused him of looking at her “incestuously.” “.

But the lack of evidence of the abuse Caroline believes was inflicted on her has led her to say she is the “forgotten victim” of the trial. That concept permeated her relationship with her mother. In her memoir – published after her father’s arrest – she accused Gisèle of not showing enough support for her, tacitly choosing to side with her rapist ex-husband instead of her daughter.

Although Gisèle and her children always sat next to each other in court, often whispering to each other, there were signs of the damage to their relationship that the trial had caused.

On Friday, Caroline’s brother David emphasized – as he has done before – that the trial was not just about Gisèle but about their entire “destroyed family”.

“Our kids feel forgotten,” he said. “Frankly, I feel that although our attorneys did a remarkable job in defending our mother, we were given a little less attention.”

In her memoir, Caroline laments Gisèle’s “denial as a coping mechanism”.

She wrote: “Because of my father, I have now lost my mother.”

Except for Dominique, all of the defendants’ prison sentences were less than what prosecutors sought.

Some defense lawyers are clearly satisfied, meaning they are unlikely to encourage their clients to appeal their sentences. A man called Jean-Pierre Maréchal was sentenced to 12 years – five years less than prosecutors had sought – and his lawyer Patrick Gontard told the BBC it was “unlikely” he We will appeal.

The months or years the men spend in pre-trial detention will count toward their total sentences, meaning some could be released soon if they have served the minimum term.

A man facing up to 17 years was eventually sentenced to eight years in prison, and his lawyer Roland Marmillot told the BBC that because he had already been in prison for several years it was likely he would be released relatively early.

However, the morning after the trial ended, two men who had been imprisoned for eight years appealed. More are expected in the next ten days – the period during which an appeal can be filed.

Dominique Pelicot has admitted assaulting and attempting to rape a 23-year-old real estate agent, known by the pseudonym Marion, in the suburbs of Paris in 1999. An ether-soaked cloth was held to her mouth but she resisted. against attackers. off and he flees. Only in 2021, after being arrested for the crime committed against his wife Gisèle, was Pelicot’s DNA cross-checked with a bloodstain found on Marion’s shoe, and he admitted his guilt .

However, he has denied any responsibility in another unsolved case – the 1991 rape and murder of another young real estate agent, Sophie Narme, for which there was no DNA. Investigators argued that the two cases had too many similarities to be coincidental.

Other pending cases using a similar modus operandi are also being reviewed.

“There will be a ‘before’ and there will be an ‘after’ of the Pelicot trial,” one Parisian man told the BBC in the early days of the trial.

For many, this sentiment has only increased over the past few months, as intense media coverage of the Pelicot trial has generated countless conversations around rape, consent, and violence. gender.

“What we need to do is have much harsher sentences,” Nicolas and Mehdi, two Mazan residents, told the BBC. They said they were “disgusted” when they discovered one of the defendants was a man they used to play football with.

“With longer sentences, they would at least have to think twice before doing things like this,” they said, adding that it was “crazy unfair” that some men could be released from prison in the next few months.

However, it is worth noting that the risk of a 20-year prison sentence for aggravated rape did not prevent Dominique Pelicot from ordering the rape of his unconscious wife by strangers he met online.

There have been calls to reform France’s rape laws to include consent, but that has stalled in the past and would take a lot of work in the currently divided French parliament.

Some people argue that schools have a responsibility to teach new generations better about sex, love and consent. Béatrice Zavarro, a lawyer for Dominique Pelicot, said she believes “change will not come from the Ministry of Justice but from the Ministry of Education.”

Françoise, a resident of the area where Gisèle and Dominique Pelicot used to live, told the BBC that she thinks a way must be found to bridge the gap between what children are taught in school and the type of material they can access online. gland.

“Young people are overexposed to sex on the internet and at the same time schools are very cautious,” she said. “They should be much more open and frank in explaining what children see.”

What these conversations show is that, although it will take time before any changes become tangible, the conversation has now begun. It will continue until there are no more unanswered questions.