As Pelicot Rape Trial Nears End in France, Wife Speaks of ‘Banality’

Gisèle Pelicot made her final address to the court, calling the things her husband allegedly did to her ‘unforgivable.’

For more than 10 weeks, Gisèle Pelicot has sat in a courtroom in Avignon, France, quietly listening to the explanations of 50 men, including her now ex-husband, charged with raping, sexually assaulting or attempting to rape her while she was in an unconscious state, having been drugged by her husband.

She has heard most say that they were not guilty — that they went to her house lured by her husband, believing they were going for a threesome that she had consented to. She has heard some say they were trapped, played like checker pieces. She has heard some say they believe that he had drugged them, too.

Ms. Pelicot stayed in the courtroom while grim videos that her husband took of those encounters were played — revealing the men, sitting on benches nearby, touching her inert body and engaging in sexual acts, with her husband in the background egging them on, often with vulgar words. (Ms. Pelicot divorced him just before the trial began.)

On Tuesday, a day before closing statements were set to begin, she was given the chance to address the court one last time.

She was tired, she said, standing small and poised at the microphone.

“It’s difficult for me to hear that it’s basically banal to have raped Madame Pelicot,” she said, referring to herself. “This is a trial of cowardice.”

The trial of 51 men — one is on the run and being tried in absentia — has profoundly shaken the country since it began in September. Mr. Pelicot has pleaded guilty to crushing sleeping pills into his wife’s food and drink for almost a decade and then inviting strangers he met mostly on the internet to come to the house they had rented for retirement in southern France to join him in raping her.

The accused are a cross-section of middle- and working-class men — tradesmen, firefighters, truck drivers, a journalist, a nurse. They range in age from 26 to 74. Most live close to Mazan, the town that the Pelicots retired to in 2013. Many are married or in committed relationships. Most have children. The court has heard from their wives, their parents, their friends and children, who mostly have said they are wonderful, kind people.

About 15 of them, including Mr. Pelicot, have pleaded guilty. Mr. Pelicot has repeatedly insisted that the others were perfectly aware of what was going on.

Ms. Pelicot has told the court that the couple met as teenagers and mostly lived together happily for 50 years. She had no idea that he had been drugging her, though she suffered frightening symptoms including extended blackouts. She had visited many doctors, fearing that she had a brain tumor or Alzheimer’s disease.

The defense lawyers who pack the court alongside their clients questioned Ms. Pelicot for the last time on Tuesday and tested their theories of defense.

One noted that she had been under her husband’s control, steered and tricked for at least a decade. So how could she not think it was possible that he had tricked and controlled these men?

“He drugged me,” said Ms. Pelicot, 71. “He did not manipulate me daily. You think I would have stayed with a man who manipulated me for 50 years?”

Another lawyer said Ms. Pelicot seemed to have more sympathy for her ex-husband than the other accused. She posited that Ms. Pelicot was still under her husband’s control.

“That’s your analysis,” Ms. Pelicot said calmly. She added, “All my life, I have been a very positive person. I will keep with me the best of this man.”

Ms. Pelicot said she had been working through her anger and sorrow in sessions with a psychiatrist, as well as long walks, talking to her friends and eating chocolate.

Her ex-husband had always driven her to her medical appointments, searching for the cause of her health issues that, ultimately, he was causing. Ms. Pelicot had described those trips as support. One lawyer pointed out that it was another form of control and manipulation, with an aim to ensure that his secret was not discovered.

“It could be both at the same time,” she responded. “I always took it as an act of kindness. It could also have been a way for him to ensure they didn’t discover the facts.”

Ms. Pelicot recognized that her ex-husband was the “orchestra conductor” and that it was not only her family that had been destroyed in the fallout but also the families of the 50 other accused men. But while they might have been manipulated to get them to the house, once the men were in the bedroom and saw her state, they should have left and called the police, she said.

“I feel anger against those who are behind me who not for one moment thought of reporting it,” she said. “Not a single one reported it. It raises some real questions.”

Since she made the rare decision of opening the trial to the public, Ms. Pelicot has become a feminist hero. While her children and grandchildren had been ashamed of their name at the beginning of the trial, Ms. Pelicot said she believed they were now proud.

“Today I am known around the world, whether I like it or not,” she said. “People will remember Madame Pelicot, much less Monsieur Pelicot.”

Mr. Pelicot was also given a final chance on Tuesday to address the court and his family, who had all assembled on the other side of the courtroom from where he sat in his prisoner’s box. Many people had been asking why he had done this, he said. He pointed to sexual violence that he said he had suffered or witnessed as a child and teenager.

“It created a fissure that I have kept for life,” he said.

Ms. Pelicot had already addressed her ex-husband earlier in the day.

“Some think I have forgiven him,” she said. “I will never forgive him. The things he did to me are unforgivable.”