[Gisèle] was asked in court how she has handled sitting through almost two months of evidence from dozens of men who are accused of raping her in her own home when she was drugged and unconscious. She said: “It’s true that I hear lots of women, and men, who say you’re very brave. I say it’s not bravery, it’s will and determination to change society.”
She said she wanted to lift the shame felt by rape victims. “I wanted all woman victims of rape – not just when they have been drugged, rape exists at all levels – I want those women to say: Mrs Pelicot did it, we can do it too. When you’re raped there is shame, and it’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them.”
She said: “The profile of a rapist is not someone met in a car park late at night. A rapist can also be in the family, among our friends.”
After hearing wives or girlfriends or friends in court saying the accused did not seem capable of rape, she said: “We have to progress on rape culture in society … People should learn the definition of rape.”
Addressing her ex-husband but saying she refused to turn her head to look at him in the dock, she said: “How can the perfect man have got to this? How could you have betrayed me to this point? How could you have brought these strangers into my bedroom?”
She said: “I always tried to lift you higher, you who plumbed the depths of the human soul, but you made your own choices.”