JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
This next interview discusses sexual assault. Come back in about four minutes if you'd like to miss it.
The nearly four-month trial taking place in the south of France has shocked the country and drawn media from around the world. Seventy-one-year-old Gisele Pelicot could have had a closed door trial, but the victim at the center of a mass rape trial gave her closing statement in a French court today. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley has been following the trial. And Eleanor, if you could, could you just start by reminding us what this trial is about?
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Yeah, Gisele Pelicot's husband and 50 other men are accused of raping and sexually abusing her while she was unconscious in her own home over a period of 10 years. Her life was shattered in 2020 when she found out that her husband of five decades had been secretly drugging her and inviting other men via a website to come into their home and play what he called fantasy games.
SUMMERS: And what did she have to say today?
BEARDSLEY: Today she denounced French society as macho and patriarchal. She called it a society that trivializes rape, and it has to change, she said. She called it a trial of cowardice on the part of the men who took part in the rapes organized by her husband. He was only caught when police questioned him in another matter and found hundreds of hours of videos on his computer. Gisele Pelicot had years of mysterious health problems and memory lapses, and she didn't know why.
But she's not been ashamed. On the contrary, she insisted that all of France see what happened to her. And she's become a hero, a feminist icon. There have been demonstrations supporting her around France. There's another one this week. She's been on the front of newspapers and magazines. I was recently at a demonstration of support for her in Paris, and they're chanting here - rapist, we see you; victim, we believe you.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting in French).
BEARDSLEY: And listen to Geraldine Pacaut and Amelie Chauveau, who were there.
GERALDINE PACAUT: She insisted the trial to be public. And it is very important because she's a voice of every woman.
AMELIE CHAUVEAU: And I think we're very proud of her 'cause she's very strong and what she did - she's really brave.
SUMMERS: And Eleanor, I know that you went to the trial. Tell us what it was like in the courtroom.
BEARDSLEY: Yeah, well, it's a small court room in the southern town of Avignon, about a half an hour from the town where this abuse took place. The 50 men are there every day. Many are in a box because they're in pretrial detention. But the others come and go. She comes in and sits at the front of the court with her daughters, not every day but most days. And there's a spillover room where you can watch it on a screen, and outside the courtroom, people are lining up to get in. I saw women of all ages who said they were coming to support her.
SUMMERS: And there in France, what has the reaction been to this case?
BEARDSLEY: Well, women are livid, and one thing you hear them talk about is what they call rape culture, just like what Pelicot said, the banalization of rape and abuse and sort of joking about it. Another reason this is France specific, say some people, is, you know, the French see themselves as this romantic society where men are gallant and know how to woo women. But women say there's clearly confusion between romance, sex and violence. A lot of people are calling this the second part of the #MeToo movement that didn't really clean house here.
And what has really shocked people are the men involved. They have regular jobs, mostly working class. There's a fireman, a computer programmer, a nurse. They range in age 26 to 72. Thirty-seven of them are fathers. Most denied they raped her. They say they thought that she was aware of what was going on, that her husband said she was, but not one of them went to the police.
SUMMERS: NPR's Eleanor Beardsley, thank you.
BEARDSLEY: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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