When she enters the court of Avignon, with her children and her lawyers by her side, h Giselle Pelico she gathers all eyes with her unassuming figure.

The 72-year-old mother and grandmother stares at the ground as she walks past dozens of reporters gathered at the entrance, her eyes hidden behind sunglasses.

She has described herself as a “ruin”.

Almost every day since September 2, the Giselle Pelico is at the center of a trialin which 51 men are accused of raping her, including the man she was married to for 50 years.

As her story sweeps her Franceshe herself has become a symbol of courage and strength.

“I sacrificed myself on the altar of evil,” she said, explaining how she learned that Dominique Pelico had been drugging her to be raped by unknown men for more than 10 years.

The trial, which will last until December, has included evidence from lawyers, police and psychiatrists, as well as another woman, who was also drugged and raped by her husband on Dominique’s instructions.

The Pelikos’ daughter, Caroline, has also testified at the trial, who believes her father abused her while she was unconscious.

Peliko has admitted to the charges against him, although he denies abusing his daughter.

Access to this shocking case was only possible because Peliko waived her right to anonymity. As a result, details of the case have flooded the media and social media.

In fact, during the trial, videos of the rapes filmed by Pelikos will be shown. Peliko’s only condition was that her children leave the courtroom during the screening.

As the BBC reports, the case has sparked a painful – and often uncomfortable – debate about rape, which many say in France is long overdue.

Today, Saturday, demonstrations are to be held across the country “in support of Giselle Peliko and all rape victims”.

When Gisele testified that she had to “start from scratch” and was now living on only a small pension, an influencer started an online campaign that raised 40,000 euros in less than a day. The initiative was immediately stopped at the request of Gisele’s legal team, who saw it as a possible distraction from the case.

Drug raids at home

One issue raised by the case is chemical submission at home, i.e. drug assault, something that has been little discussed in France (and not only there).

In 2022, 1,229 people in France were suspected of having taken drugs without their knowledge, according to Leila Chavachi, a pharmacist at the addiction monitoring center in Paris and an expert on drug rape.

That number is probably “just the tip of the iceberg,” she believes. Victims are often reluctant to report, either because they know the perpetrator, because they are ashamed, or because they have hazy memories of what happened.

Complaints must also be made before the substances disappear from the body, which is not always possible.

In the 10 years that her husband drugged her, Peliko had unexplained neurological symptoms as well as gynecological problems, yet no one gathered the evidence, which shows the lack of knowledge on the subject.

Dr. Tsavachi emphasizes that we are not talking about individual cases, but about a broader social issue.

What has shocked the French is the sheer number of men involved in the case. Police were only able to identify 50 suspects out of the 83 who appeared in Peliko’s videos.

Their ages range from 26 to 68 and they come from all walks of life – firefighters, pharmacists, workers and journalists. Many are fathers and husbands.

Of those charged, 15 admit to rape, but all others only admit to engaging in sexual acts.

Jeline Pique, from the feminist organization Osez le Féminisme, hopes the trial will have a lasting impact due to the fact that the defendants come from all backgrounds.

“It dispels the myth of the rapist being a psychopath… They raped because they were sure of their impunity,” he says.

No one spoke

Another factor that worries French women watching the case is that many other men they knew and did nothing.

Peliko had invited men to have sex with his wife “without her knowledge” in a post on the website Coco.gg, which was shut down just last June. Last year it counted 500,000 visitors per month.

“100% of these people never made a phone call to stop this abuse,” says Celine Pique. “Not one person thought to report these crimes to the police.”

They didn’t know they were raping…

The defense of many of the defendants is based on the assumption that they did not “know” they were raping Giselle – in other words, that they thought they were having consensual contact with her.

Some accused Pelikos of “manipulating” them into believing they were engaged in a game of love, in which Giselle only pretended to be asleep because she was shy.

At least two of the defendants said they did not feel they raped Giselle because she had been “offered” to them by her own husband. One man said he did not consider his actions rape because “rape to me is when you grab someone outside in the street.” “I don’t have a fast heart,” he added.

On this line of defence, Guillaume De Palma, a lawyer for six of the defendants, caused outrage when he said that “rape is not always rape” and argued that “without the intention to commit rape, there is no rape”.

In French law, rape is sexual penetration achieved by restraint, force or surprise, and Pelico’s lawyers are expected to argue that surprise covers the case of a drugged or unconscious woman.

But the comments sparked anger and frustration in the courtroom and beyond.

Giselle’s daughter walked out of the trial shouting “shame on the justice system”, while the court president adjourned the session amid what reporters described as “extremely tense”.