Last month, I traveled to Paris to meet Gisèle Pelicot, the woman at the center of France’s largest-ever mass-rape trial. We talked for nearly three hours about her life before, during and after the horrific abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband of 50 years. She told me about the moment she learned that he had, over the course of a decade, drugged and raped her repeatedly and invited at least 70 men into their bedroom to assault her while she was sedated and unconscious. She also discussed her decision to give up her anonymity at the trial of these men, and the impact of the revelations on her and her three children, including her daughter, Caroline Darian, from whom she was until recently estranged.
Here are some of the memorable moments from our conversation, which you can read in full here.
‘We always called it the house of happiness’
Gisèle met Dominique Pelicot when they were each 19. She described him as a shy boy who blushed easily. They were soon married, and following her desire to “run away and live a happy life,” they moved to the Paris suburbs. They didn’t have much at first, but they were in love and wanted to start a family. She said she had a “joie de vivre” with him.
All our friends and family liked him. He was always ready to help, athletic. I only knew a kind and caring man. Which is terrifying.
In 2013, they retired to a house in Mazan, in the southeast of France, surrounded by olive trees and bathed in sunlight, doors open to family and friends.
I thought I would have a happy retirement with Monsieur Pelicot. The Mazan house was a place where we could have friends and the children over during the holidays. We always called it the house of happiness.
Though Dominique had started abusing her in 2011, things escalated in Mazan, and Gisèle started to suffer from mysterious blackouts.
‘The day I found out the truth’
Hours before Gisèle found out about Dominique’s years of abuse, they were having breakfast together “as if nothing happened.”
That afternoon, they were summoned to the police station to discuss, she thought, an incident in which her husband was caught filming up women’s skirts.
When she was being questioned privately at the station, she said she saw the officer’s “face start to change” as he pointed to a stack of files. They contained pictures, taken by Dominique, of her being raped by a stranger. She said she looked like a “rag doll,” unconscious in her bed, unrecognizable even to herself. Dominique had also recorded videos of many assaults, but she refused to look at them at the police station that day. She changed her mind only right before the trial, because she knew they would be played in the courtroom as evidence.
‘Suffering doesn’t necessarily bring a family together’
Talking about the impact of the revelations on her family, Gisèle said:
Suffering doesn’t necessarily bring a family together. You need to understand, it’s like an explosion that blows everything away. We try to recover, each in our own way and in our own time.
During the investigation, Gisèle also learned that the police had found pictures of her daughters-in-law in the shower and her daughter asleep in underwear that Darian said she didn’t recognize. After the investigating judge didn’t press for a case concerning her daughter, she distanced herself from her mother for a perceived lack of support.
Gisèle explained:
I didn’t want her to plunge into this pain. So it’s true, I might have inadequately supported her at first. She was angry at me because of it, which is entirely reasonable. But I didn’t abandon her; I tried to alleviate her suffering. I don’t think she saw it that way. And that’s why she put some distance between us.
She added:
It’s true that what Caroline went through is extremely painful. I’m deeply moved by her suffering, because this lingering doubt is an inescapable hell. There are no answers. There are those two photos of her asleep that open up a lot of questions. But I don’t have any answers, and Monsieur Pelicot didn’t give her any answers either.
After Gisèle underwent surgery late last year, her daughter reached out. Gisèle said they are beginning to repair their relationship and that they talk regularly.
‘It’s very important that people know’
In France, victims of sexual violence have the right to have their identity protected during a trial. With encouragement from her daughter, Gisèle made the extraordinary decision to give up her anonymity, allowing an open proceeding.
On Sept. 2, 2024, after her lawyers told the court that she was waiving her right to a closed trial, she faced her ex-husband and also dozens of the men who had raped her and their 45 lawyers. She said she told herself, “‘Hang in there, my dear, you’re going all the way.”
Her decision to go public moved women around the world to flood her with letters of gratitude. She understood the impact of her decision this way:
I think entire generations of women have been muzzled, and this trial enabled these women to talk openly.
‘I hope that when we’re face to face, he’ll be able to tell me the truth’
In the four years between Dominique’s arrest and the trial, Gisèle moved to a small French island, made new friends and found new love. She writes in her memoir, “A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides,” which will be published on Feb. 17, that she wants to speak to her now-ex-husband in prison. When I asked her about it, she told me:
I hope that when we’re face to face, he’ll be able to tell me the truth, both about his daughter and about everything else he’s now accused of. Maybe he’ll have some remorse. I’m still holding on to that hope. Maybe I’m naïve, maybe I won’t get an answer.
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