Gisele Pelicot publishes memoirs after rape trial ordeal

Gisele Pelicot speaks to the press as she leaves the courtroom, in the Avignon courthouse, southern France, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024.

Gisele Pelicot, the survivor of mass rapes organized by her husband at their home in southern France, has published her memoirs about the trial that turned her into an internationally celebrated figure in the movement to end violence against women.

Le Monde published some extracts of the original French on Tuesday.

Pelicot was drugged with tranquilizers for a decade by her ex-husband Dominique Pelicot, then raped by him and dozens of men he recruited online.

In the 2024 trial in Avignon that garnered global attention, she declined the option to hold it behind closed doors, saying she wanted the world to know what she had been subjected to.

“When I think back to the moment I made my decision, I realize that if I had been 20 years younger, I might not have dared to refuse a closed session,” she wrote in her first-person account, titled “A Hymn to Life: Shame has to Change Sides” in English and “Et la joie de vivre” in the original French.

The book, written with journalist and novelist Judith Perrignon, will be published by Flammarion on February 17, in a worldwide release in 22 languages.

“I would have been afraid of the stares, those damned stares that a woman of my generation has always had to deal with,” she explained in an excerpt published by the newspaper.

“Perhaps shame fades all the more easily when you’re 70, and no one pays attention to you anymore. I don’t know. I wasn’t afraid of my wrinkles, or my body,” she confided.

In the nearly four-month trial, 51 men, including her husband, were convicted.

Her courageous decision to lift the closed-door proceedings and her dignity during the hearing contributed to making Gisele Pelicot a leading figure in the fight against violence against women.

The book chronicles her “vague feelings” before the trial: “The closer it got, the more I imagined myself becoming a hostage to their stares, their lies, their cowardice, and their contempt,” she wrote. “Wasn’t I protecting them by closing the door?”

Her book also recounts her disbelief when police first showed her photos of the rapes taken by her husband.

“I didn’t recognize the men. Or this woman. Her cheek was so flabby. Her mouth so limp. She was like a rag doll.”