Gisèle Pelicot has been called a lot of things: Victim. Survivor. Icon. She calls herself 'an optimist’

WARNING: This article includes details of intimate partner violence and sexual assault

Gisèle Pelicot understands that those who followed her ex-husband's trial in September 2024, where he was convicted of drugging her, raping her and inviting other men to do the same while she was unconscious, might only see her through that lens.

She's been called a victim. A survivor. A feminist icon. 

But, despite "all the difficult chapters" as she puts it, what she calls herself is "an optimist." 

At 73, she has not lost her faith in men, love or the possibility of finding peace, she said in a recent Canadian broadcast exclusive interview with The Sunday Magazine host Piya Chattopadhyay. 

"I've always believed in happiness," she said in the interview, which has been translated from French to English. "And that's essential, in my mind, because if there isn't love, I can't see why we would be here on Earth."

It's an echo of what she's written in her book, A Hymn to Life: Shame has to Change Sides, which will be released on Tuesday.

"I know my story has fuelled disgust for men, but it has not done that for me," she writes. "I still have faith in people. Once that was my greatest weakness, now it is my strength, my revenge." 

Almost six years ago, Pelicot's life was upended when police in southeastern France showed her some of the photos Dominique Pelicot had kept to document the assaults that he orchestrated against her involving himself and at least 50 men beginning in 2011, according to evidence at trial.

Police could only identify some of the men in the roughly 20,000 files of photo and video evidence; 50 were convicted of participating in the sexual assaults after being recruited online by Dominique Pelicot to assault his wife while she was unable to consent.

He was sentenced to 20 years in prison — the maximum under French law; the other men received sentences ranging from three to 15 years.

Supporters around the world rallied for Pelicot after she waived her right to anonymity at the trial.

The images of the mother and grandmother outside the courthouse in Avignon, France, each day would underscore her quiet strength and dignity as she repeatedly rejected the narrative that survivors carry the shame of their perpetrators' crimes.

"In the street, women tell me: 'You're an icon.' I would say I'm more like a symbol or a landmark in these women's lives, because the trial really gave them a voice," she said in the interview. "But really, I'm an ordinary woman who refused that the trial be closed to the public."