What Dominique Pelicot trial tells us about 'normal' men

The lower slopes of the mountain are gentle, leafy, pleasant. But toward the summit where only the most intrepid dare venture it's barren, seemingly devoid of life, stripped of foliage by the bitter winds which give it its name. The British cyclist Tom Simpson died on its exposed upper reaches, collapsing from heat exhaustion in the 1967 Tour de France.

According to prosecutors in an ongoing case against him, Dominique Pelicot too is a man of grisly contrast.

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In the Autumn of 2020 he was accused of inviting at least 50 other men - 83 individuals were noted by police but not all have been identified and one is on the run - to rape his drugged wife, Gisèle, while he watched on.

Prosecutors allege that between 2011 and 2020 he drugged his spouse with anxiolytics, recruiting strangers from chat rooms to assault her in her unconscious state for his own pleasure.

Gisèle began suffering from memory loss, mental absences, sleep problems. She stopped driving and consulted three neurologists. None could get to the bottom of it.

It was only when Pelicot was caught filming up the skirts of three women in a shopping centre and his computer was searched for evidence that the abuse came to light - a decade of rapes, photographed, filmed and meticulously captioned and archived.

Gisele Pelicot arrives at the Avignon courthouse, flanked by members of the media, to attend the trial of her former partner Dominique Pelicot (Image: Christophe Simon/AFP) The defendant was analysed for the court by two psychologists and two psychiatrists this week - though he was not there himself having been excused on account of "abdominal pain".

They described him as having "obsessive fantasies" approaching necrophilia with "a total absence of empathy".

Pelicot was described as a "Jekyll & Hyde" character, with a "schism in his psyche".

Dr Paul Bensussan concluded: "There can coexist within one individual two completely opposing personalities."

Gisèle Pelicot has waived her right to anonymity for the trial, insisting it not be held behind closed doors.

It began on September 2, is being heard by five professional judges - most rape cases in France moved to this model, rather than three judges and six lay jurors, in 2023 - and is scheduled to run until December, though it may face postponement if the defendant is deemed too unwell to attend when proceedings resume on Monday.

The implications of the case, though, go far beyond him and raise uncomfortable questions with which France and the world at large is grappling.

Accused alongside Pelicot are 50 men, aged between 26 and 74, most of whom are accused of aggravated rape, a crime which carries a 20 year prison sentence.

Co-defendants arrive to attend a session of the trial of Dominique Pelicot accused of drugging his wife Gisele Pelicot for nearly ten years and inviting strangers to rape her at their home in Mazan (Image: Christophe Simon/AFP)

None of these men, it would appear, asked any questions around consent. At least 10 are accused of having made return visits, some of them up to six times. All appeared to lead perfectly normal lives. Among them are firefighters, stonemasons, gardeners, prison guards, soldiers, journalists. Most have no prior criminal charges. One turned up late for the first day of the trial because he was taking his son to school.

If, as one psychologist had it, Pelicot represents the banality of evil, what of his co-defendants?

While some have pleaded guilty, the defence offered by others is that they were told Gisèle had willingly been knocked out, all part of the game, all apparently taken at face value. Some said they had the permission of her husband, which should be sufficient.

Lawyers speculated on the potential libertine lifestyle of the couple, asked how credible it was that she could not have noticed anything.

Writing in Le Monde the journalist Hélène Devynck described this defence as a "chemically pure sample of patriarchal violence", referring to so-called 'good guys' who "all got hard at the idea of penetrating an inert body".

Co-defendants speak with a lawyer at the courthouse during the trial of a man accused of drugging his wife Gisele Pelicot for nearly ten years and inviting strangers to rape her (Image: Christophe Simon/AFP) Gisèle's lawyer, Antoine Camus, said in a break in session: "She is obviously indignant.

"She would have liked to answer, we could feel her stamping her feet behind us, saying: 'But I want to answer, I want to answer, I have to answer'. And we told her: 'Tomorrow!'"

When she did speak she told the court: "I'm inert, in my bed, and I'm being raped. These are scenes of barbarism. Don't talk to me about sex scenes, these are rape scenes."

Activists are calling for demonstrations on the streets on Saturday.

Feminist campaigner Anna Toumazoff wrote on social media: "91% of rapes happen in the home. The victims are your friends, your wives, your sisters, your mothers, your grandmothers.

"The perpetrators are your friends, your husbands, your brothers, your grandfathers. Don't be like those who said nothing - choose your side, join us."

In an article for Libération, Camille Etienne, Giulia Foïs, Camille Kouchner, Yelle and Victoire Tuaillon wrote: "(this is) an opportunity to confront the sad banality of the profile of the men behind the rapes, to finally face this reality.

"Family friend, stranger in the bar or on the street, brother or cousin, friend, colleague, teacher, neighbour: all women will unfortunately be able to find a face that brings back a traumatic memory among the multitude of Mazan's defendants.

"The man who rapes is not an extraordinary monster but an ordinary man, like the father who beats his children and hits his wife.

"We call on men to rise up with us, to no longer remain passive at best, complicit at worst. 'Not all men' is what we hear over and over again after each femicide or rape, but when will there be concrete actions to change things beyond these words, which sweep away the observation with a wave of the hand?"

That, perhaps, is the real question.