“My world is falling apart,” Gisèle Pélicot testifies to the 51 accused

For the first time, Gisèle Pélicot has spoken out. At the trial of dozens of men suspected of raping her for ten years, after being contacted on the internet by her husband, the 71-year-old victim spoke on Thursday, September 5 before the criminal court of Vaucluse. “My world is collapsing, for me everything is collapsing, everything I have built in fifty years”testified the 71-year-old victim, recounting the moment on November 2, 2020, when investigators showed her the images of the sexual abuse she suffered and told her that her husband was the perpetrator. He is accused of drugging her with sleeping pills so that she would not notice anything.

The police “[lui] saved the life” in “investigating the computer” of her husband, says Gisèle Pélicot. In a photo, “I am lying inert in my bed and I am being raped. These are scenes of barbarity,” she continues. “They treat me like a rag doll,” she adds. For three days, the main victim of this trial had remained stoic and silent, speaking only through her lawyers, who had notably relayed on Monday her refusal of a closed hearing so that “Shame changes sides”.

“I’m like a boxer who falls and every time I have to get up”insists the victim, who still described her husband as “a nice guy”, “a great guy” to the police officer who had summoned her that day in November 2020, before he showed her the photos. She now introduces him with a laconic “Mr. P.”.