Five unanswered questions from the process

French rape survivor Gisèle Pelicot left a court in southern France for the last time on Thursday after her ex-husband was sentenced to 20 years in prison for drugging and raping her for nearly a decade and inviting dozens of strangers to join her too mistreat.

Dominique Pelicot, 72, was found guilty of all charges by an Avignon judge. He stood trial along with 50 other men, all of whom were found guilty of at least one charge, although their sentences were shorter than prosecutors had requested.

Although the trial is over, there are still questions about the Pelicot case and what happens next.

When she first climbed the steps of the Avignon courthouse in September, no one knew Gisèle Pelicot’s name. Over the next 15 weeks, her reputation as a rape victim who refused to be ashamed of what was done to her grew dizzyingly.

Until she left the tribunal ThursdayHundreds of people shouted her name and her picture was on the front pages of newspapers around the world.

She is perhaps one of the most famous women in France today. This means that despite the name change, she cannot return to the anonymity that helped her so much as she tried to build a new life after her husband’s crimes were exposed.

Gisèle is not the first person whose unimaginable suffering has made her an icon. At great personal cost, she has become a symbol of a fight she never chose. It therefore seems unlikely that she would want to become an outspoken activist against gender-based violence or a prominent feminist figure. Maybe she’ll return to what she says has always given her comfort: music, long walks and chocolate – and to her seven grandchildren.

“At the beginning of the trial she said, ‘If I last two weeks, that will be a lot.’ “In the end she made it to three and a half months,” said her lawyer Stephane Babonneau. “Now she’s at peace and relieved that it’s all over.”

Days after Dominique Pelicot’s crimes came to light, his daughter Caroline Darian was called to the police station and shown photos of a seemingly unconscious woman in unknown underwear. She later said her life “stopped” when she realized she was looking at photos of herself.

Her father has always denied touching her, but Caroline – whose grief and despair were evident in many court hearings – said she would never believe him and accused him of looking at her “with incestuous eyes”.

But the lack of evidence of the abuse Caroline is convinced was inflicted on her has led her to say she is “the forgotten victim” of the trial. This idea was visibly reflected in her relationship with her mother. In her memoirs, published after her father’s arrest, she accused Gisèle of not providing her with sufficient support and of implicitly choosing to side with her rapist ex-husband rather than with her daughter .

Although Gisèle and her children always sat next to each other in court and often huddled in whispers, there were signs that the trial had put a strain on their relationship.

On Friday, Caroline’s brother David emphasized – as before – that the trial was not just about Gisèle, but about her entire “devastated family”.

“We children felt forgotten,” he said. “Honestly, I feel like while our attorneys did a great job defending our mother, we were given a little less consideration.”

In her memoirs, Caroline Gisèles lamented “denial as a coping mechanism.”

“Because of my father,” she wrote, “I am now losing my mother.”

Apart from Dominique, all of the prison sentences imposed on the defendants were shorter than those requested by the prosecution.

Several defense attorneys appeared visibly satisfied, making it unlikely they will encourage their clients to appeal their verdicts. A man named Jean-Pierre Maréchal received 12 years in prison – five less than prosecutors had asked for – and his lawyer Patrick Gontard told the BBC there was “out of the question” that he would appeal.

The months or years the men spend in custody count toward their overall sentence, meaning some may soon be released if they have served their minimum sentence.

A man facing 17 years in prison was eventually sentenced to eight years, and his lawyer Roland Marmillot told the BBC that he was likely to be released relatively soon as he had already spent several years in prison.

Nevertheless, the morning after the trial ended, two men, each sentenced to eight years in prison, had already filed an appeal. More are expected to follow in the next ten days – the period in which appeals can be lodged.

Dominique Pelicot has admitted attacking and attempting to rape a 23-year-old real estate agent, known by the pseudonym Marion, in a Paris suburb in 1999. A cloth soaked in ether was placed over her mouth, but she managed to fight off the attacker and he fled. It was only in 2021, after he was arrested for the crimes he inflicted on his wife Gisèle, that Pelicot’s DNA was matched to a blood stain on Marion’s shoe and he confessed his guilt.

However, he has denied responsibility in another unsolved case – the 1991 rape and murder of another young real estate agent, Sophie Narme, for which there is no DNA. Investigators argued that the two cases had too many similarities to be coincidental.

Other unsolved cases involving similar procedures are also being re-examined.

“There will be a ‘before’ and an ‘after’ to the Pelicot trial,” a Parisian told the BBC at the start of the trial.

For many, this feeling has only grown in recent months, during which intense media coverage of the Pelicot trial has sparked countless conversations about rape, consent and gender-based violence.

“We need to impose much, much harsher punishments,” Nicolas and Mehdi, two residents of Mazan, told the BBC. They said they were “disgusted” when they learned one of the defendants was a man they had played football with.

“With longer prison sentences they will at least think twice before doing something like this,” they said, adding that it was “insanely unfair” that some of the men could be out of prison in the next few months.

However, it is worth noting that the risk of a 20-year prison sentence for aggravated rape did not stop Dominique Pelicot from offering his unconscious wife up to be raped by strangers he met online.

There have been calls to reform France’s rape laws to include consent, but this has stalled in the past and would require significant work in the currently divided French Parliament.

Some have argued that schools have a responsibility to better teach new generations about sex, love and consent. Béatrice Zavarro, Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer, said she believes that “changes will come not from the Ministry of Justice but from the Ministry of Education.”

Françoise, a resident of the area where Gisèle and Dominique Pelicot once lived, told the BBC she believes a way needs to be found to bridge the gap between what children are taught in schools and the type of material to which they are exposed they have online access.

“Young people are exposed to so much sex online, and at the same time schools are very prudish,” she said. “They should be much more open and open about explaining what children are seeing.”

This exchange shows that while it will take some time for change to become tangible, a conversation has now begun. It will continue until there are no more unanswered questions.