“Inside, I am a field of ruins”… The first testimony of Gisèle Pélicot

At the criminal court of Vaucluse,

“A tsunami”, “scenes of barbarity” and its “world [qui] “collapses”. At the Mazan rape trial, Gisèle Pélicot, drugged by her husband and raped by several dozen men for almost a decade, spoke for the first time since the opening of the hearing this Monday in Avignon (Vaucluse).

For nearly four hours, she faced her attackers, the court and the public, rewinding in one go, with clarity, courage and concision, the thread of her life until the day when, in the investigators’ office, ” [s] our world is falling apart.” In a red-orange dress, topped with a white jacket, Gisèle Pélicot first recounted her childhood, already marked by a fight with the death of her mother when she was 9 years old. “My father did not give up, he is a boxer, like me. […] I understood then that my life would not be like that of others.”

But nothing, absolutely nothing, could prepare her for what she was about to experience. “I started working young, at 16, as a secretary. Three years later, I met Mr. Pélicot [c’est désormais de cette unique manière qu’elle nomme son ex-mari] and we fell madly in love.” At 20, the young couple got married. “We had everything to be happy. In my life, I have only known two men: Mr. Pélicot, and a second whose name I will not reveal. I have never practiced threesomes or swinging,” she emphasizes without apparent emotion or a glance towards the dock.

A “classic” sexuality

Throughout her statement, the perspective and dignity with which Gisèle Pélicot addresses the abuse she suffered are striking. “I try to stand up for my children. When people see me, they say to themselves: “This woman is strong.” The facade looks solid, but inside, it’s a field of ruins, we’re going to have to rebuild.”

Gisèle Pélicot was then able to describe a “classic” love and sex life with Dominique who had left her no clue, at least until she reread it afterwards and except for a one-day proposal to go out to a swingers club. “The last two years, I found that his behavior had changed, that he seemed worried. When we made love, I had the impression that he no longer wanted to meet my gaze, which I liked. It is with hindsight that I tell myself all this today,” she notes. “He also happened to take intimate photos of me, when I got out of the shower, at the swimming pool. But Mr. Pélicot knew that I didn’t like that and I didn’t know there were so many.” Thousands were thus found on her ex-husband’s computer equipment.

An ex-husband that, for the moment, Gisèle Pélicot does not overwhelm. The victim even goes so far as to give his psychiatric history, in light of the elements collected by the investigators and of which she has become aware. In particular, a rape that Dominique Pélicot allegedly suffered in a family setting when he was 9 years old. She mentions a second trauma, where her ex-husband, aged 13, working on a construction site, witnessed a gang rape during which his colleagues inflicted a sort of “hazing” on him, grabbing him to put his face on the victim’s sex, it is recounted in court. This case also revealed to her the bisexuality of her ex-husband, which she finds hard to believe. “Maybe he should have been helped. I see a shrink, and fortunately so.”

An accused person reached

Gisèle Pélicot also spoke about the gynecological problems she had experienced. Repeated cervical infections, hemorrhoids, and four STIs. Miraculously, despite being raped six times without protection by an accused HIV carrier, she did not contract the virus. Pain that caught her attention and led her to “ten years of therapeutic wandering. It was terrible. But who could have imagined that I was on drugs?” she sighs.

Then grilled by defense lawyers ready to do the dirty work, trying to start pleading the manipulation of their clients by Dominique Pélicot, or even question the virtue of the victim, if not make her an accomplice, the latter swept aside these insinuations. “How can we imagine that a woman could accept this? The videos are unbearable, […] I am lying inert in my bed, and I am being raped. These are scenes of barbarity. These individuals knew perfectly well what they were doing, to say otherwise is an insult to intelligence. […] “I lived through a tsunami. What woman can live through that? Why? My view of men today has changed,” she concluded before the session was suspended.

“Madame Pélicot”, until the end of the trial

A monologue and a public unpacking of fifty years of life together which visibly for the first time in this trial affected Dominique Pélicot, “devastated” at the suspension of the session, indicated Béatrice Zavarro, his lawyer. “The assize court is there, the trial is taking place but it was almost Mr. Pélicot’s judgment today when madame takes the stand,” explained the lawyer to the press.

The fact remains that Gisèle Pélicot displays astonishing strength in light of what she has suffered and is facing today, with the firm determination to make this trial public and to assume her family name, inherited from her marriage while she is in the process of divorcing. “Until the end of this trial, I am Mrs. Pélicot, in solidarity with my children who bear this name.” For the future, Gisèle is trying to rebuild herself as best she can. “This trial will be a page for me that I will turn once and for all. Today I am starting from scratch, except that I only have my pension to live on.”

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