‘I’m a woman who’s totally destroyed’: Gisèle Pélicot testifies in mass rape trial

Gisèle Pélicot addressed other survivors of rape and sexual violence, saying 'it's not for us to have shame – it's for them.'

Gisèle Pélicot took the stand Wednesday, addressing a packed courtroom that included her ex-husband and some of the 50 other men on trial who are charged with raping her at her former husband’s bidding.

For the first time since early in the trial, she spoke about her husband’s “immeasurable” betrayal, and expressed sympathy for the wives, mothers and sisters of his 50 co-defendants, French media reported.

“I always wanted to pull you up, toward the light,” she said, addressing her ex-husband, Dominque Pélicot. “You have chosen the depths of the human soul.”

Gisèle Pélicot, 71, has become a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France after she waived her right to anonymity and asked that the trial be made public, insisting that the blame be shifted from the victim to the perpetrators.

The trial is examining a 10-year period, from 2010 to 2020, in which her ex-husband is accused of soliciting and inviting dozens of strangers to rape his drugged and unconscious wife. The assaults were meticulously documented in thousands of videos and photos, which were found on his computer and phone when investigators went searching after he was caught filming under women’s skirts in a store.

Dominique Pélicot previously admitted to inviting the men, many of whom he found online, over to his home to rape his wife.

“Today I maintain that, along with the other men here, I am a rapist,” Dominique Pélicot testified last month. “They knew everything. They can’t say otherwise.”

During earlier questioning, he told investigators that men invited to the couple’s home had to follow certain rules — they could not talk loudly, had to remove their clothes in the kitchen and could not wear perfume nor smell of tobacco.