“It could have been worse,” the city’s mayor told the BBC, sparking outrage on social media

The interview went almost unnoticed on the French side, but shocked people abroad, particularly in the United Kingdom. The mayor of Mazan, Louis Bonnet, was interviewed by the BBC on September 10 about the trial on behalf of his commune. “It could have been worse,” he claims to the English journalist. Dominique Pelicot, 71, is accused of drugging his wife and inviting strangers to rape her, for nearly ten years. He appears until December before the departmental criminal court of Vaucluse, alongside 50 other men.

During this interview, Louis Bonnet condemns the facts (“what happened is very serious”), but seems to minimize the trauma of Gisèle Pelicot and her family. “When there are children involved or women killed, it is very serious, because there is no going back (…) But they are not dead”said the mayor, who also believes that his village should not “to bear the memory of a crime that goes beyond the limits of what can be considered acceptable”.

Finally, Louis Bonnet did not hesitate to compare Gisèle Pelicot to another victim from the neighboring town of Carpentras (Vaucluse), according to the BBC’s correspondent in France. The mayor believes that the latter “was conscious at the time of the rape and will carry physical and mental trauma for a long time, which is even more serious”.

Many Internet users, especially abroad, strongly denounced the speech of the mayor of Mazan. “Mayor Bonnet is clearly part of the problem. I hope that residents will make this very clear in the coming months. A shameful attitude,” says a user of the social network X in particular. In a column relayed by the Guardianthe English author and journalist Yvonne Robets believes that “This disgusting story should have had its day”.