A last breakfast in her small house in Mazan, southern France. That November morning in 2020, Gisele Pelicot had no idea her life as she knew it was about to end. She had an appointment — a summons to a local police station.
Two months earlier her husband, Dominique Pelicot, had been arrested after being caught filming under women’s skirts in a supermarket. He insisted it was a one-off, promised to go to therapy, and she intended to support him.
Led into a separate room, Gisele was shown images of a sexual assault. At first she did not realize the woman pictured was herself. Investigators later found more than 20,000 images of non-consensual sex. For a decade, Dominique had repeatedly drugged his wife and, using the dark web, recruited men from their area to rape her while she was unconscious. He carried out the abuse at least 200 times.
The trial of Dominique Pelicot and 50 identified accomplices took place in the fall of 2024. Gisele emerged as a global feminist figure. Weeks before it began she decided the proceedings must be public and that the trial should have a face: hers. The horrific videos would be shown in open court. “Shame has to change sides,” she said, calling out perpetrators and enablers and challenging a culture that blames survivors.
Throughout the three-and-a-half-month trial Gisele — by then divorced — was met daily by growing crowds of women who cheered her courage. International media covered both her resilience and the humiliations defense lawyers tried to impose, along with disturbing details of the abuse she suffered. Proceedings also revealed that the main defendant secretly filmed his two daughters-in-law in the shower and kept nude photos of his daughter while she slept, wearing underwear that was not hers. It remains unclear whether the daughter was assaulted. Authorities are now investigating him on suspicion of murder.
Dominique Pelicot was sentenced to 20 years in prison — the maximum penalty for rape in France. All 50 accomplices received lengthy terms.
Gisele, who has legally returned to her birth name Gisele Guillou, published her memoir under the name she is still known by. A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides, written with journalist Judith Perrignon, is being released in 22 languages. At 73, she says previous coverage never represented her well.
In the book she tells her own story: her childhood, the early loss of her mother, meeting the man she married and placing her trust in him. She writes about raising three children and becoming more professionally successful than her husband — a fact that had not seemed to matter — then the shock of learning he had acted out depraved fantasies on her, routinely sedating her with powerful medication and exposing her to risks such as memory loss, exhaustion and pelvic infections. In court, her then-husband refused to watch the videos and photos again.
Gisele explains why she clung for so long to memories of a happy marriage, even sending fresh laundry to her husband in prison. Habit and caregiving played a part, but above all she wanted to understand — something her children struggled to accept, creating resentment. The trial and public exposure strained family relationships and caused rifts among siblings.
Her book attempts to explain how she coped. Ultimately she sees herself as the victor over her husband. She has found new love. “I didn’t die,” she writes. “I’m still able to trust others.” More than five years after Dominique’s crimes came to light, his ex-wife has reclaimed her life and rediscovered joy in it.
This article was originally written in German.