Defense lawyers question whether French woman was unconscious during sex

Lawyers for some of the men accused of raping an unconscious French woman who had been drugged by her husband asked her Wednesday about her habits, personality and sex life, even questioning whether she was truly unconscious during the encounters.

Gisèle Pelicot's testimony came a day after her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, testified that for nearly 10 years, he drugged her and invited dozens of men to rape her as she lay defenseless. She fiercely rejected any suggestion that she was anything but an unwitting victim.

“Since I’ve arrived in this courtroom, I’ve felt humiliated. I am treated of being an alcoholic, an accomplice... I have heard it all,” she told the court at the start of the day's proceedings, breaking at times with the remarkable calm and stoicism she has shown throughout the often harrowing trial that has gripped France.

Gisèle Pelicot, who was married to her husband for 50 years and shares three children with him, has become a hero to many rape victims and a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France for agreeing to waive her anonymity in the case, letting the trial be public and appearing openly in front of the media.

Her ex-husband and the 50 other men on trial, who range in age from 26 to 74, face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Many of the defendants deny having raped Gisèle Pelicot. Some claim they were tricked by Dominique Pelicot, others say they believed she was consenting, and others argue that her husband’s consent was sufficient.

Gisèle Pelicot and her lawyers say the preponderance of evidence -- thousands of videos and photos shot by her ex-husband of men having sex with her while she appears unconscious -- should be enough to prove she is a victim, entirely unaware of what Dominique Pelicot was subjecting her to from at least 2011 until 2020.

But on Wednesday, defense lawyers focused their questions on the notion of consent and whether she was aware of what was happening at any time during some of the 90 sexual encounters that prosecutors believe were rapes.

“Don’t you have tendencies that you are not comfortable with?” one lawyer asked Gisèle Pelicot.

“I’m not even going to answer this question, which I find insulting,” she responded, her voice breaking. “I understand that victims of rape don’t press charges. We really spill everything out into the open to humiliate the victim.”

Another lawyer asked whether she was indeed unconscious during one of the encounters captured on video.

“I didn't give my consent to Mr. Pelicot or these men behind me for one second,” she said, referring to her ex-husband's co-defendants.

Another questioned the time and date stamps on the videos, and whether she thought the sexual acts lasted as long as the stamps suggested. “Rape is not a question of time,” she said.

“To talk of minutes, seconds. ... It does not matter how long they spent. It’s so degrading, humiliating what I am hearing in this room," she said.

At one point, Dominique Pelicot, who already said during the trial that all of the accusations against him are true, came out in support of his ex-wife, saying, “Stop suspecting her all the time ... I did many things without her knowing.”

On Tuesday, he testified that all of his co-defendants knew exactly what they were doing when he had them over, saying, “They knew everything. They can’t say otherwise.”