French prosecutors have demanded a 20-year jail sentence for Dominique Pelicot, who is accused of drugging his former wife Gisèle for a decade and inviting 50 men recruited online to rape her.
Mr Pelicot, who has admitted to the charges, should also undergo medical treatment for 10 years, prosecutors said.
Twenty years – the maximum sentence for rape under French law – “is both a lot… and too little given the gravity of the acts that were committed and repeated,” said prosecutor Laure Chabaud.
Referring to an assessment of Mr Pelicot made by a psychiatrist earlier in the trial, Ms Chabaud said that the defendant presented “multiple sexual deviances”.
Verdicts and sentences are expected next month.
“He sought pleasure through a desire to submit, humiliate and debase his wife – the person he claimed to cherish the most in the world,” Ms Chabaud told the court, saying that Mr Pelicot, 72, should be re-examined at the end of his sentence before being released.
Another prosecutor, Jean-François Mayet, said the trial had shaken up society and that what is at stake “was not a conviction or an acquittal” but “to fundamentally change the relations between men and women”.
Mr Mayet paid tribute to the “courage and dignity” of Gisèle Pelicot, who was in court as she has been most days since the trial began in September.
Her decision to waive anonymity and have an open trial has led to a huge amount of interest in the case, which has in turn sparked a nationwide conversation on rape culture, consent and chemical submission – drugging someone for the purposes of coercion or assault.
On Monday morning posters reading “20 years for everyone” had appeared on the walls around the Avignon courthouse where the trial is taking place.
However, it is unlikely the 50 defendants in this extraordinary case will be handed sentences this long.
The longest jail term requested by prosecutors today – excluding the 20-year demand made for Mr Pelicot – was for Jean-Pierre Marechal, a co-defendant who is not accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot, but who has admitted to drugging and raping his own ex-wife on Mr Pelicot’s advice and instruction.
He is facing 17 years in prison.
Posters have appeared on the streets of Avignon, spelling out “Rape is rape – 20 years for each” [Getty Images]
Prosecutors also demanded 10 years for most of the other 19 defendants whose cases were examined today.
The majority of the 50 accused deny the charges of rape, arguing that they cannot be guilty because they did not realise Ms Pelicot was unconscious when they were invited to the family’s home by her husband, and therefore did not “know” they were raping her.
But prosecutor Ms Chabaud said that “in 2024 we can no longer maintain that because she didn’t say anything, she consented.”
She added that neither the circumstances nor the behaviour of Gisèle Pelicot “could have led these men to believe that she agreed to be subjected to these sexual acts in her lethargic state.”
Dominique Pelicot in court on 25 November. [Getty Images]
In an address to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Prime Minister Michel Barnier said this trial was a watershed moment for the country’s efforts to combat violence against women.
“I’m convinced that the Mazan trial will mark a before and after,” he said.
Mazan is the name of the village where the Pelicots lived and where Dominque Pelicot filmed the local men he had contacted online.
The prime minister also announced a series of government measures to combat violence against women, including funding for pharmacies to dispense home drug test kits under a pilot scheme to fight chemical submission.
Earlier on Monday, Equality Minister Salima Saa said the government was “fully mobilised” and announced the expansion of a system which allows victims of sexual violence to file complaints in hospitals and not just police stations.
The system is currently used in 236 hospitals and will be extended to 377 by the end of next year.
A new awareness campaign was also announced.
The trial, which opened in early September, is now in its final stretch.
Lawyers for the 50 defendants will make their closing arguments over the next three weeks, and a verdict is expected by 20 December.
