Gisèle Pelicot was interviewed again this Wednesday, October 23 as part of the Mazan rape trial. For the first time, she directly challenged her ex-husband.
Main victim of the Mazan rape trial, Gisèle Pelicot spoke for the second time this Wednesday, October 23 at the bar, as part of a “mid-term” interrogation that the president of the Vaucluse criminal court had announced last week. The wife of Dominique Pelicot, today accused of having drugged his wife to rape her and proposition her to dozens of men he met on the Internet, shared her condition. “I am totally destroyed,” she declared, confiding her doubts about her future: “I don’t know how I am going to rebuild myself, get back up from all this.”
Aged 71, Gisèle Pelicot reconsidered her choice to lift the closed session of the Mazan rape trial. The objective was “that all women who [sont] Rape victims say to themselves: ‘Madame Pelicot did it, we can do it.’ I don’t want them to be ashamed anymore. The shame is not ours to have, it’s theirs,” reports RMC. And to clarify his desire: “Above all, I express my will and determination so that we can change this society.”
“I would like to speak to Mr. Pelicot”
Subsequently, Gisèle Pelicot spoke for the first time to her ex-husband whom she accuses. While her ex-husband looked down in the dock, the septuagenarian confided that she still did not understand how she had ended up there. Recalling their “fifty years of life together”, their “three children” and “seven grandchildren”, but also all the kindness and attention he gave her or even the support she herself was when he was ill, Gisèle Pelicot then expressed her total incomprehension, as relayed France Blue : “I prepared for four years for this trial, but I still don’t understand why. I’m trying to understand how this gentleman, who for me was the perfect man, could get to this point. How did he -he could betray me to this extent? How could you bring people into my bedroom? You knew my aversion to swinging.” And he told the audience: “I thought about ending my days with this gentleman.”
“The rapist is not just the one you meet in a parking lot, late at night”
“I don’t know if my life will be enough to understand,” asked Gisèle Pelicot, adding that she sees “the psychiatrist every Monday.” The septuagenarian also had a word for all the women who have defended for eight weeks, during this trial, a son, a brother, a husband, an “exceptional” father. “I had the same one at home. The rapist is not just the one you meet in a parking lot, late at night. He can also be in the family, among friends,” she said. warned, reported franceinfo.
During the first weeks of the trial, Gisèle Pelicot did not hide her difficulties. “I was told that I was complicit, consenting. They even tried to tell me that I was an alcoholic. You have to be solid to be before this criminal court.” This Wednesday, she deemed the excuses made by some of the accused “inaudible”. “When they apologize, they apologize themselves,” she considered. As for his “courage” often highlighted in the media, the affair having an international impact: “It’s not courage, it’s will and determination to move this forward. society,” she corrected.