It is one of the most heinous sexual-abuse stories in history. Gisèle Pelicot was drugged and raped repeatedly by the person she trusted most in the world — her husband, Dominique Pelicot — who also invited dozens of men into their bedroom to rape Pelicot while she was heavily sedated.
The abuse started in 2011, but Pelicot did not learn of it until 2020, after Dominique was caught secretly filming up women’s skirts at a supermarket near their home in southeastern France. After the police arrested him, they discovered videos and photographs of his wife being assaulted by at least 70 men — assaults that Dominique had recorded and saved.
Four years later, a trial of Pelicot’s abusers began. Even then, we might never have known Gisèle Pelicot’s name. But in her new memoir, “A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides,” which will be published on Feb. 17, Pelicot explains why she decided to forgo anonymity and make the 2024 trial public. That choice made her a feminist icon, inspiring women all over France to rally around her and to demand change to France’s consent laws.
Still, Pelicot has remained in many ways an enigma. Outside of the trial, she never sat down to tell her story. But over a nearly three-hour interview last month in Paris — her first to be published with an American media outlet — Pelicot gave a candid and emotional account of the early years of her marriage; the toll that the abuse, and then the trial, took on her; the fallout for her family; and how, despite everything she has been through and the many questions that linger, she has found love and some peace in her life again.
Pelicot spoke French during our conversation, so her answers here have been translated into English.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
This is the first time that people will hear from you in your own words. How are you feeling sitting down and discussing this in a public way? When I wrote this book, I wanted it to be useful. It also allowed me to look inward, to take stock of my life and try to rebuild from the ruins. When you hear the facts of the trial, you see this woman and wonder, How is she still standing? I needed to convey that I’m still a woman who stands tall.
Before we talk further, how would you like me to refer to your ex-husband? Monsieur Pelicot.
I’d like to start by talking about the period before you knew what was being done to you. You had retired to the southeast of France, to a town called Mazan. What kind of person were you then? I retired at just over 60 years old. I had always worked, raised my children and had a very active life. And 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. We weren’t far from Mont Ventoux in Les Baux-de-Provence. We had the cicadas, the olive trees, the sun. We also had a swimming pool. As soon as the grandchildren arrived at the house, they would put down their things and jump in. I enjoyed watching them grow up. I was living a fulfilling, happy life. Of course, like all couples, we had difficult times. Life is not always smooth sailing. But I had this joie de vivre with Monsieur Pelicot. 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.
A lot of the book seems to be an attempt to understand whom you actually married. Can you describe how you and Monsieur Pelicot met and who he was when you first discovered each other? I met Monsieur Pelicot in July of 1971, so we were two 19-year-old kids. When I met him, he was this shy boy, always blushing, and his family life was a bit more complicated than mine. His father was a tyrant, very authoritarian, and he had to give his parents every penny that he made. When he was younger, he was raped in the hospital, and then when he was 14, he was forced to watch a gang rape at a construction site. He never went to therapy, and his family didn’t help him either.
We decided to marry really young. My father disapproved. He had remarried, and my stepmother wasn’t very nice, and my only desire was to run away and live a happy life. And that’s what actually happened. We moved to the Paris suburbs. We didn’t have much at first, but we were in love. We both wanted to start a family. They say love stories don’t end well, and mine ended badly 50 years down the road. But still, I hold onto the good moments from that life.
As far as we know, Monsieur Pelicot seems to have started abusing you in 2011. But in 2013, when you retired to Mazan, things accelerated. This is when you started experiencing unexplained memory losses. Can you tell me about those blackouts? The first time, the episode in 2011, I have no memory of it. It came back to me later, in front of the investigating judge, when I learned that my first rape took place on July 23, 2011. I remember waking up in the night, and I realized that something was wrong with Monsieur Pelicot, because I said to him: “What are you doing? Leave me alone.” And since I was sedated — not enough for him, though; I think he was already starting to experiment with the doses he was giving me — I went back to sleep and woke up very late the next day, around 6 p.m. I asked, “How come you didn’t wake me up?” And he said, “You were tired, I let you sleep.” I was a little intrigued that I could sleep so long.
That episode stuck in the back of my mind. I didn’t think about it again, but when the same thing happened in September 2013 — except this time I didn’t wake up during the night; I realized the next day, when I put on the pants I had worn the night before and there were stains on them, like bleach spots — I thought it was strange. What had I done? I couldn’t remember the night before, and I asked Monsieur Pelicot about it. He was in the garden at the time, and I said to him, “Doumé” — my nickname for him — “you’re not drugging me, are you?” It was as if I were asking him what he wanted to eat or if we were going for a walk that afternoon. In other words, my subconscious asked the question, but as if I were joking.
And then, to my great surprise, he cried. He said to me: “Do you realize what you’re saying to me? What are you making me out to be?” His response completely threw me off balance, and it was me who ended up apologizing for thinking such a thing. I said: “I’m sorry, I apologize. I don’t know why I asked you that.” And after that, I never mentioned it to him again. My subconscious had detected something, but I buried it.
It was striking to me, reading your book, how dependent and isolated you were. You were no longer working. Your children didn’t live nearby. You didn’t drive because you were having increasingly frequent blackouts, which you were worried about. Monsieur Pelicot took you to the doctor to make sure he could oversee what treatment you were getting. How was he behaving toward you during this time? I always thought that this man would protect me. When I started having these lapses, I told him about it, of course. I told him, “I need to see a doctor, because I think I have something serious.” And he said, “I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with you, you’re going to worry your children for nothing.” I told him that I wanted to know for sure.
The first time he took me to the neurologist, he had made the appointment and came with me, because I was afraid of the diagnosis. I’ll always remember the neurologist’s attitude. I told him I was very worried because I couldn’t remember the previous day — watching a movie, brushing my teeth, everyday things I did just before going to bed. He had me do some clinical tests, like standing on one leg to see if my balance was still good. And once I sat back down, he said: “I think you had a ministroke. It can happen once in a lifetime. So don’t worry, it’s absolutely nothing.” So I leave with Monsieur Pelicot. And in the car, he says to me, “See, I told you, there’s nothing wrong with you.”
Fine, but the blackouts continue. So I made another appointment with another neurologist. She said to my children, “You’re going to have to prepare yourselves, because I think your mother has all the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease.” What was I supposed to do with this? I felt doomed. I kept thinking of my mother, who died very young. I was preparing for the end. I thought I had very little time left to live.
Monsieur Pelicot even accompanied me to the gynecologist, because I had gynecological problems. Many people have asked, “How could she not have known?” But that’s the reality. I trusted him so much that I couldn’t imagine that this man was manipulating me. He always said I was the love of his life. How can you treat the love of your life that way? It’s unthinkable.
Let’s talk about when you learn what has really been happening. In 2020, Monsieur Pelicot tells you that he has been caught filming up women’s skirts at a local supermarket. Were you shocked? When Monsieur Pelicot revealed to me what he had done in the Carpentras supermarket, I found it hard to believe because he had never done anything underhanded to me. In 50 years, I had never seen anything. He was not a man who made jokes about women or behaved inappropriately toward them.
I said to him, “What got into you?” He said, “You weren’t there, and I had an impulse.” Because he had never done anything like that before, I told him: “I’ll help you, you need to get help, you need to see someone, because you can’t go on like this. You’re going to apologize to those women, because they need reparation.” I told him: “For now, I’m forgiving you, but I’m warning you, there won’t be a next time. Next time, I’ll leave.” And he replied: “Don’t worry, I’ve learned my lesson. I won’t do it again.”
I believed him, and that’s what’s terrifying for me to think about even today. How could he look me in the eye and talk to me like that? Like that last breakfast, the day I found out the truth. We had our breakfast as if nothing had happened.
That last breakfast was two months from the time that he told you he had been caught filming, because it took that long for the police to call you both into the station. This is when you learn what actually had been happening to you. I know this is an incredibly painful moment, but could you take me into it? When they sit you down, what do they tell you, and what do you see? I thought we were going to talk about the two photos he took in the store in Carpentras. Monsieur Pelicot went in first. I was called in maybe half an hour later, and when I go up to the first floor to meet Lieutenant Perret, I arrive at his office and expect to find Monsieur Pelicot there. But Monsieur Pelicot isn’t there. I think to myself, Maybe that’s normal. He wants to know if Monsieur Pelicot really told me the whole truth. So I sit down, and since it was during Covid, we’re wearing masks. We’re sitting a little farther apart, he tells me to take off my mask, and he starts to ask me questions: my first and last name, my parents’ ages. I admit that I started to wonder, Why all these questions?
Then the questions became more and more specific: Can you describe your husband? So I said, Yes, of course: a good man, attentive, caring. We’ve been together for 50 years, I’ve never had a problem with Monsieur Pelicot, except for this incident. And then he starts to change the tone of the interrogation and asks me if I practice swinging with Monsieur Pelicot. At that point, I start to wonder, What is he getting at, why is he asking me this question? And I say to him: “Listen, of course not. At my age? I’m a modest woman. And besides, the idea of another man touching me is unthinkable.” And then I see his face start to change.
He has a pile of files next to his desk. He says to me, “Madame Pelicot, what I’m about to tell you is not going to please you.” I’m really starting to worry, my heart is racing. I say to him, “What’s going on?” He says, “See the pile over there,” and he starts to open a folder to show me a photo. He says, “Do you recognize yourself in this photo?” And of course I didn’t recognize myself, because I was with a man I didn’t know, who was raping me. I said, “I don’t know this man.” And I thought to myself, That’s not me. He shows me a second photo, which is pretty much the same, and he says, “That’s you there.” I say no, and he says: “This is your room, Madame Pelicot, these are your bedside lamps. We searched your home, these are your belongings.”
At that point, my brain went into dissociation. He wanted to show me videos. I said, “No, I can’t anymore, I can’t.” And he told me: “Your husband is in police custody, he won’t be leaving with you. You need to know that you have been raped many times. We have arrested 53 individuals,” and I will later learn that there are 20 or 30 who have not been arrested. He tells me that I have been raped about 200 times. I say, “But that’s not possible.” And then I ask for a glass of water because I can’t talk anymore.
They had a psychologist there, they had planned everything. All I want to do is go home, because everything they’ve told me isn’t possible, it’s not true. I’m in another world, basically. So the psychologist arrives, she talks to me, but I can’t hear her. Lieutenant Perret takes me home with one of his colleagues, and when I got home, he said to me, “Call a friend, don’t stay here alone, because you’re in danger.” They knew that not everyone had been arrested. So I called a friend. But I still didn’t believe it. It was like a bad joke. Not denial, but total disbelief. My friend arrives, and when she sits down in the living room and asks what’s going on, I tell her: “Dominique has been arrested. He’s in custody because he raped me and had me raped.” I think that’s the first time that I said the word. It took me almost five hours to absorb it, but I said the word “rape” to my friend at that moment.
It is unimaginable: This man that you had been married to for 50 years, suddenly you get this information. What was it like to see that unconscious version of yourself? Devastating. I’m a rag doll. It’s as if I’ve come out of surgery, because I’m completely anesthetized. These men, when you see what they’re doing to me — how is it possible that my body couldn’t feel anything? So it’s true that it really was anesthesia. Fortunately for me, I have no memories, because I think I would have killed myself afterward. I couldn’t have survived that. I told myself that it wasn’t me. It was me, but it wasn’t. Monsieur Pelicot had disguised me. I looked like a sack of potatoes. I had no soul, nothing. That woman wasn’t me. That’s probably what saved me, telling myself that.
You write that “a wave of shame swelled up inside me” after this revelation. Can you talk me through why you felt shame at that moment? I think all victims feel this shame. You feel dirty, you feel degraded. There’s nothing human about it. I spent hours in the shower trying to wash away this filth, this dirt that makes you feel dehumanized.
For those who didn’t follow the trial, I just want to give a few examples of the scale of the abuse that you learned about in the months that followed this police station visit. Is that OK? [She nods.]
Monsieur Pelicot was finding men online to rape you while you were heavily drugged. He would meticulously film those encounters. This was happening constantly: after your children came for dinner, while you were on vacation. There’s one moment you describe in the book when a crown came loose in your mouth. You write that it was because of “the violence of penises being repeatedly forced into my slack mouth.” When that crown started to move, I was eating breakfast, and Monsieur Pelicot was in front of me. Because of Covid, we can’t see the dentist. And I can’t get it out. But I know it’s going to fall off, and I’m afraid I might swallow it. And I ask Monsieur Pelicot, “Could you help?” He went to get some gauze to remove the crown, and I think to myself, How could it have given way? The day before, it wasn’t loose. And he says to me, “You must have bitten down on something.”
When I discovered the videos showing the violence these men inflicted on me, in my limp mouth — they have to hold my head because my face is falling, I have no muscle tone — and Monsieur Pelicot doesn’t even react. There is no empathy, no pity for this woman who is there, completely dead in her bed. It was incredibly violent to tell myself that even that, they didn’t spare me. [She starts to cry.]
I’m sorry. It’s OK.
Do you want to take a moment? No, it’s OK.
I’m sorry for what happened to you. It’s very important that people know. It’s shocking, I know.
It’s shocking. As you’re processing this, you learned that the police have also found pictures of your daughters-in-law in the shower, and of your daughter, Caroline, asleep in underwear that she says she doesn’t recognize. And all three of your children are having to deal with what their father has done. Caroline ends up having a breakdown, she ends up being hospitalized. It must have been so difficult to balance being a victim yourself and having to be a mother of adult children in need. 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. 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.
I hope one day he feels remorse and finds it in himself to talk to his daughter. I know she’s in a lot of pain. I spoke to her this morning. We talk on the phone almost every day now. She’s suffering, and for a mother, that’s really hard. She’s 47 years old now. What she wants is to be recognized as a victim, because today, she’s not officially a victim. He has been condemned for taking all these images, but he was never condemned for what he did to Caroline.
It strikes me that, when earlier you were talking about how happy you were, and what a family person you were, how proud you were of being a parent and a grandparent, to have your family pulled apart in this way must have been very painful. It’s true that most of my life revolved around my family. All those memories, what can we do with them now? Because you can’t rewind your life.
In the book, you write about how you have struggled to reconcile your happy memories with the knowledge you have now about who Monsieur Pelicot was. You write: “If the last 50 years of my life were taken away from me, it would be as if I had never existed. I would be dead.” That’s a very complicated idea. Can you explain how you’ve tried to work through that? It might seem strange, but it’s a lot like grieving. You grieve for the life you had. I couldn’t erase all the good memories, because otherwise, I’d lose everything, and my existence would be void. So I held on to those good memories. It’s like sorting your laundry: You separate clean and dirty clothes. I set the dirty laundry aside and kept everything that was clean.
In France, victims of sexual violence have the right to have their identity protected during a trial. But you made an extraordinarily brave decision to waive your anonymity, allowing an open proceeding. Can you take me into that decision? How did you realize that this was something you wanted the world to see? It took me four years to make this decision. I wanted a closed trial, I didn’t want people to know who I was, I wanted this trial to be just the assailants and their lawyers. And one day, my daughter told me: “Mom, you’re doing them a huge favor. Think about it.” And it took four years, but one day I went on a walk by myself, and I realized she was right. When we carry this shame with us, it adds insult to injury, like being sentenced twice, because you keep inflicting that pain on yourself. Fighting that shame on an individual level, rejecting it for myself, also meant working for the collective.
I knew I had made the right call when, on Sept. 2, I walked into this hearing room with those 51 defendants and their 45 lawyers. The journalists were already in the room, but they knew they would have to walk out soon. No one expected what was about to happen. When the presiding judge said, “Ladies and gentlemen from the press, this is a closed hearing, please see yourselves out,” my lawyers stood up and said, “Your Honor, our client waives her right to a closed trial.” And then, I saw the way the defense was looking at me. They were staring, like, She dared to do this! The defendants were staring too, defiant, with something in their eyes. It’s dreadful for the victim. I told myself, “Hang in there, my dear, you’re going all the way.” And I held on, but they made me pay for it. They called me an accomplice, they said I was a woman who had consented, I was suspected. They tried to persuade the court that: “If she’s here, she must be responsible for what happened. Our clients are not guilty of what they did.” I can assure you that I didn’t flinch, not once. Until the very end, I held on. It takes guts. You have to be strong.
What was it like to see all those men in the courtroom, day after day? The first time I walked into that courtroom, I discovered their faces, because I didn’t know them. I had never met them, because I was always — I don’t like the word “asleep”; I was anesthetized, unconscious. And when I discovered their faces, ages 22 to 70 years old, it was really unbelievable to think, Those people came into my bedroom to rape me.
They were saying it hadn’t been rape. To them, it was the husband had consented, he had said, “You can come in.” They had logged onto a website, Coco.fr, in a chat room called “Without Her Knowledge.” They knew exactly what they were on trial for, but they had a way of discounting their guilt. They saw themselves, almost, as innocent.
This was tough for me, facing their gaze. Once, one of the accused kept staring at me, wanting to force me to look down. But then I just kept staring back until he lowered his eyes. He finally understood that I wouldn’t give in. They all tried to break me. Their lawyers were asking questions to destabilize me, humiliate me. That’s when I started to raise my voice, to put an end to this masquerade.
Fortunately, I was lucky to have all this evidence: the pictures, the videos. Every time, they were asked, “Did you receive Madame Pelicot’s consent?” Obviously, most of them didn’t even know what that meant. They said, “Well … no.” “Did you rape Madame Pelicot?” They said, “Uh, no.” So, they were shown the videos. They were saying that Monsieur Pelicot had been pressuring them, that they were terrified of him, but when you look at the videos, there’s no trace of Monsieur Pelicot being violent. There is violence, sure, but they were the ones perpetrating it. Real violence, monstrosity, even.
They were in such denial that even after seeing the videos, when asked again, “Did you rape Madame Pelicot?” they still say no. It’s just unbelievable. And their wives came to testify, too, saying: “Of course not. My husband, my boyfriend would never do that.” I think I could have been one of those women, if the roles had been reversed. There was even a mother who was my age. She came to testify, talking about her “baby boy,” even though he was 45. That was another outlandish thing to hear: “My baby boy would be incapable of raping this woman.” She didn’t even look at me. This also was shocking and violent for me, because I wasn’t recognized. If her boy had raped me, then I must have been OK with it. That’s what she meant, basically.
You mentioned the role of the videos. Up until right before the trial, you had never watched them. It’s inconceivable to have to sit and watch that happen to you. But as you note, without those videos, you wouldn’t have had the proof to show these men were lying, and you probably wouldn’t have been believed. How do you think about that? When I decided I didn’t want a closed trial, my lawyers told me, “Careful, you refused to see them before, but now, you’ll have to watch.” I didn’t feel ready. I thought it would be very difficult for me. At some point, one of my lawyers said, “Now you do have to watch them.”
So we picked a day for me to lock myself in my office, and I watched them via videoconference. They asked me if I was ready. Obviously, you can never be ready to watch this kind of video. I thought, You said no to a closed trial, so you have to go through with this. My lawyer told me nicely, “Whenever you’re ready, Gisèle.” He started the first video. I think he actually started with one of the hardest to watch. Watching this is truly unbearable. You’re thinking, How is it even possible you’re seeing this? And you see the violence of these individuals. They’re animals. And you’re this disjointed, unconscious body, without a soul, with nothing left in it.
I didn’t watch all of them, as it would have taken a considerable amount of time. I don’t know how many of them there were — several of them per individual. I watched many of them. Each time, people asked me if I was all right. I was just taking it. It was like a boxer rolling with the punches. You fall and you get back up.
Once we were done, I needed to go for a walk. And that’s when my tears started streaming, and I thought, How could the man I shared my life with, the father of my children, have let these people come in? Because he knew what this was. That’s when you think: What was going on in his head? How could he not feel compassion at some point?
When I came back from my walk, I told my friend, “Listen, let’s talk about something else.” My brain had recorded it, but I put it in a corner of my mind. I thought, All right, we’ll be able to use them as evidence, because not all victims have this evidence. And we showed them at the trial, because they were denying it. But I didn’t watch them then. I looked at my phone, at pictures of the beach, of Mont Ventoux. That was my escape as they were watching me. What deeply shocked me, and it’s unbelievable to think about this, is that I could hear myself snore in the videos, because of how sedated I was. There was nothing left of me.
All of them were found guilty. That was a victory for me. I put myself in the shoes of other victims who are subjected to the same things. Because I don’t have any memory of it, this helped me put myself back together. But for victims who do have memories of what happened, can you imagine what goes through their head when they’re told that their case is closed without further action because of a lack of evidence? Because it’s one person’s word against another’s. It’s important to underline that. It must be really hard for these victims to put themselves back together.
One of the things that most people noticed about you during the trial was how collected you were — how well you dressed, how elegant you were. You write in the book that you had no choice but to be invincible. That feels like a heavy burden. I’ve always been elegant in my life because I’ve always been working. I think this comes from my parents. One of the lawyers for the defense asked one of my lawyers, “How come she’s always so elegant when she comes in in the morning?” And the more people said it to me, the more I took time to be elegant. It was also a way for me to prop up this tortured body. It was a way of saying, “You will not affect me.” That was the strength I had within me. When I woke up in the morning, I put on some music and asked myself, “What am I going to wear today?” Just to annoy them. [Laughs]
One of the most moving things at the trial was the women that came to support you. Every day they were clapping, chanting. And you were getting all these letters. What were people saying to you? I think this trial echoed their suffering. They recognized themselves, and my trial was also a way of doing them justice. At first I decided to be there for only two weeks, but then, because I saw them every morning when I came in, I felt a responsibility to see it through. They would come early, it was raining, it was cold, and I could see those women waiting for the courthouse to open its doors. It touched me deeply. Their presence outside the building softened what was happening for me inside the courtroom, and I thanked them for it.
I received thousands of letters from all over the world, which also surprised me. Not all of those women were victims, of course, but there was a lot of suffering in the letters. They thanked me for talking about it, because now they were no longer afraid to do it as well. I got so many messages from women telling me: “Thanks to you, I’m going to file a complaint. And it won’t be a closed-court trial.” Some even told me, “I’m going to divorce, I’m going to leave my husband.” That was also surprising. I think entire generations of women have been muzzled, and this trial enabled these women to talk openly.
In the end, Monsieur Pelicot was sentenced to 20 years in prison, the maximum. All the others received varying sentences. Was justice served? For me, it was. The sentence doesn’t matter. Monsieur Pelicot was sentenced to 20 years. He was the ringleader of this whole masquerade, this sordid affair. As for the others, what mattered to me was that they had been found guilty, which is why I did not contest their sentences. My children were shocked by the sentences some of them received.
Not all the men in the videos have been identified. Some of them are still out there. That must be hard for you. I try not to think too much about it. Sometimes, when I cross paths with a man, I think, What if … ? In Avignon, I met a man who paid for my meal. I had gone to pay my bill. I was lunching with my lawyers before heading back to the courtroom in the afternoon. And they told me, “Your meal has been paid for.” I said, “No, that’s not possible.” They said, “Yes, by the man over there.” I went to thank him and asked him where he lived. He lived not far from Mazan. Once we had finished talking, I said to my lawyers, “What if he is one of my rapists who wasn’t arrested?” Of course I thought about it. I no longer do, or at least less often. I’m not paranoid. But I could cross paths with one of these men who knows me even though I don’t know him. I sometimes think about that. But then I quickly try to stop.
God, that’s so hard. One of the things, as you note, that came out at the trial is real shock over how many men in a small village could be rapists. One was even your neighbor. And Mazan is not unique. There’s nothing special about it. What can we understand from that? I don’t think my story is an isolated case. I’ve learned about stories that are similar to mine. Not long ago, I learned about a case, I think it was in Germany, where a man raped his wife for 15 years. He “offered” her to other men. This says a lot about men’s behavior, but we should not think all men would do this. That’s another important point to note. Because if we start saying all men are rapists, that’s going to become a real problem. What I really believe is that we need to educate our children at a very early age. I don’t know what kind of education these men received. Most had extremely hard journeys through life; some were raped themselves. But having suffered as a child doesn’t mean you should repeat the same pattern.
Monsieur Pelicot is now under investigation for two earlier crimes, including one from 1999, in which he is accused of attempting to rape a young woman using ether. The crime was a cold case until his arrest, and he eventually confessed to the assault after DNA evidence linked him to it. How did that change your understanding of who he was and the crimes against you? Because it seems that this behavior was going on for longer than even the police had realized. I learned about this case in November 2022, two years after I discovered the horror I had been subjected to. The day I got this call from the investigative team in Nanterre, I didn’t even understand what they were talking about, because I was completely tangled up in my own story. I said, “Yes, I know about Monsieur Pelicot’s case.” The investigator on the phone told me: “We’re not talking about the same case. We’re talking about a case that took place in ’99 in Paris.” Good thing I was sitting, because I think I would have collapsed on the floor. It was as if a bomb had gone off for a second time.
I asked myself, “How did I not notice any signs?” He must have come home that evening, because he always came home in the evening. We must have sat down at the dinner table with the children. I most likely cooked him a meal. And that evening, he behaved as if nothing had happened. Even the children didn’t notice anything. We didn’t notice that he wasn’t in a good mood. I didn’t notice stains on his suit. I didn’t notice any scratches, because I think this young woman most likely fought back. Once again, he managed to put up a wall. He showed us one of his two faces: a considerate, caring man. But we didn’t see the other face. He was actually Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
He is also currently being investigated for the rape and murder of another woman in the early 1990s, which he denies. I still hope today that he is not the author of this crime. For now, he is presumed innocent. But I really hope that this family will get the truth. I don’t know how her mother can keep enduring this today. If he’s guilty, we’ll have no choice but to accept it, of course, and it will be another hellish journey for his children and for me.
I want to touch again on the effect on your family, which we talked about earlier. There was a moment Caroline wasn’t speaking to you because she felt that you didn’t support her fully, and now that relationship seems to have been repaired. Can you talk to me a little bit about some of the challenges that you’ve faced with your daughter? As my case started to evolve, the investigating judge didn’t push the investigation concerning Caroline, because I think there were so many defendants in my case, and there was all this evidence showing these rapes. For Caroline, there were two pictures that raised questions. There was indeed the father’s incestuous gaze on his daughter. I never denied it. But I tried to tell Caroline: “You know, maybe …” Because I didn’t want her to suffer. Because while I was trying to have this shell, my daughter has a different character. I think she’s more fragile than I am. And 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. I think she felt I wasn’t trying to understand what she was going through. It’s not that I wasn’t trying to understand. I was trying to lift her toward the light, because I didn’t want her to fall apart. I never gave myself permission to fall apart in front of my children. But she had a right to fall apart. Especially as he’s her father. She was extremely close to her father.
As time went by, I also put some distance between us. Maybe this was a way to protect myself, because her hatred and anger is something I had trouble carrying. By putting some distance, I thought, That way she’ll be able to heal, to find peace. Yet as of now, she still hasn’t.
I underwent surgery toward the end of November, and at Christmas, she called to ask how I was doing. I got a sense that she had a need for me to be closer to her. That’s what’s happening now. I’m being very careful, because there’s still a lot of hatred and anger toward her father, but she realized I wasn’t the one responsible for it. I think she might have conflated her father and me. So now I think she’s thinking, My mother is not responsible for any of it.
Have you seen each other? No, not yet. But she’s sent me videos of my grandson playing rugby. I got a call from her just this morning. I think we’ll be seeing each other.
At the end of the book, you say you want to go and speak to Monsieur Pelicot in prison. Have you done that yet? And what do you need to know? Not yet, but I want to do it, because 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. But I hope I’ll be able to get the answers he was unable to provide in front of Avignon’s criminal court. Maybe he’ll say, “I need to free my conscience.” That’s why I want to go.
It’s going to be very hard if it happens. Yes, I do think it will be a difficult moment for me. I’ve never set foot inside a prison. I imagine he must be in solitary confinement. I imagine he has changed a lot. But he’s there because he did what he did. It’s not as if he was sent there by accident. But I do hope he’ll have some remorse. If he’s actually capable of it — and that, I don’t know.
There were four years between Monsieur Pelicot’s arrest and the trial. In this period, you ended up moving to a small French island, you made new friends, and you found love again. I think many people would find that incredible, that you could trust a man again. I had never imagined falling in love again, or even that it could be something I would want. To me, it was impossible. We had mutual friends, and one of those friends threw a party, and I met this man who also had a difficult journey, because for 10 years, he took care of his wife, who had a severe illness, and he stayed with her until her dying breath.
We talked a lot. We were two battered souls. He didn’t know much about me, hadn’t read a lot about my case in the press, and of course, I was reluctant to tell him about what I went through. It could scare him off, to think, Who really is this woman? And actually, it happened naturally. He had read a piece in Le Monde, and he’s the one who started talking to me about my story. He made me comfortable. Then we started dating, and then we fell in love. We thought, maybe it won’t last. Then, we went to the opera to see “Carmen.” We were two teenagers. I had my first kiss on the day we saw “Carmen," and I thought, Yes, maybe there’s something there. He changed my life, he truly did. I trust him fully, because I think he’s a very beautiful soul. You might tell me, “You also trusted Monsieur Pelicot,” but I don’t think he has that perversion. He didn’t have the same childhood Monsieur Pelicot had. He had a happy childhood, and I know his children, his family and friends, and I think we’re going to do great things together. I think we’ll make the most of these beautiful years we have left, and I hope they’ll last very long.
You know, Gisèle — can I call you Gisèle? Yes, of course. “Gisèle” was chanted all over the world. “Thank you, Gisèle.” So of course.
Gisèle, I am curious. We’ve talked about your mind and how you have, as you say, been able to stay standing all this time. But after everything that you’ve physically gone through, how do you feel about your own body? I was able to heal myself. I go on walks, on bike rides. I’m fortunate to be living on a beautiful island. I feel good in my mind and my body. I’m all right with the age I am now, 73. It’s not easy. You get more and more wrinkles. But I’m all right with them because I’m fortunate to have these wrinkles, which my mother never got to have. That’s important. [She starts to cry.] As you see, I still get emotional when I talk about her. I’m lucky to be alive.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
