In this edition of Entre Nous, we speak to FRANCE 24's Annette Young, the host of The 51%, for an update on France's Pelicot mass rape trial. We find out what have we learned from the different testimonies of the accused and why the hashtag #notallmen is creating controversy.
Watch moreFrench mass rape trial shocks the nation: Pelicot and the banality of evil
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Watch moreFrench mass rape trial shocks the nation: Pelicot and the banality of evil
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NewsTranscript
00:00Come back to France now, where the ongoing trial of Gisele Pellicot has been taking evidence
00:04from the scores of men accused of raping the 72-year-old grandmother who had been
00:10drugged unconscious by her husband. In that court in Avignon in the south of France,
00:15Dominique Pellicot has admitted to drugging his wife for a period of nearly 10 years
00:20with the intention of raping her or having other men sexually assault her.
00:25To take us through where the trial is at at the moment, I'm joined on the set by Annette Young,
00:29the host of the 51 Percent. Annette, what have we been hearing from those men who stand accused
00:34of raping Gisele Pellicot? Well, according to Le Monde, 25 men, including Dominique Pellicot,
00:40have already given evidence in the last few weeks. And in addition, another 20 more and possibly
00:47others will be giving evidence in the months to come. The latest group of defendants include an
00:53ex-machinist, a carpenter and an IT technician aged between 40 and 74, some married, some divorced,
01:01some not. And this is what some of them had to say. There was one man dubbed Vincent C,
01:08a 43-year-old who visited the Pellicot house on two occasions. He admitted that the acts that he
01:18committed at the time were not acts of rape. He didn't think it was rape. The video of what
01:24occurred was filmed by Dominique Pellicot and played during the trial. Another was a married
01:31truck driver. He said he had consulted the chat rooms on that infamous website coco.fr, which has
01:39since been shut down and the cause of many concerns and criminal complaints by police.
01:46He said he was just curious. He wanted to see photos. He started exchanging emails with Dominique
01:53Pellicot, who offered me gardening work and as means of payment, offered his wife. So, you know,
02:02again, some extraordinary bits of evidence emerging in the course of this trial.
02:07There was another one, a gentleman by the name of Jean-Marc L, who was a truck driver as well.
02:12He married, divorced a grandfather, said he was a habitual user of prostitutes and had also
02:21frequently perused coco.fr, this notorious website, because he admitted in court that
02:27his latest partner wasn't the greatest when it came to sex. And then finally, there was Mohamed
02:34who actually, it turns out, visited not their home in Mazan near Avignon, but in fact,
02:42the Pellicot's daughter-in-law and son's holiday home in Ile de Ré in May 2019.
02:51Now, the interesting thing about this trial is unlike British and Australian court trials,
02:57we are actually hearing about the criminal records of those accused. And in this case,
03:02it turns out Mohamed had been convicted five times. In 1999, he'd been found guilty of raping
03:08one of his daughters, who was 14 at the time and had spent 14 years, if I stand corrected,
03:14in jail as a result. So, you're starting to get more of an overview of the type of men involved.
03:22Having said that, a lot of them are ordinary individuals with no criminal records.
03:27The court's also starting to investigate as to how the husband, Dominique Pellicot,
03:32was able to access so many different medications that allowed him to drug his wife
03:36for so many years. I mean, what does this say to us about the medical profession?
03:39Indeed. Well, first and foremost, it says that there is no training at all among healthcare or
03:45medical workers in France when it comes to chemical submission, as it's called in France.
03:50We would probably call it drug-facilitated sexual abuse. Now, one of the doctors
03:55giving evidence at this very lengthy trial is none other than Joël Pellicot. And no,
04:00it's not a coincidence that he has the same name as the accused and also the victim,
04:04but he happens to be Dominique Pellicot's older brother, and apparently one of those
04:09who Dominique Pellicot reached out to to get prescriptions of various drugs. The main drug
04:16that he did use was Tremester. This, apparently, he decided to use it after talking to a nurse
04:23online. As a result, this drug put his wife in a very deep sleep, allowing him and others to
04:30sexually abuse her. But of course, given the length of time involved that this went on over
04:36nearly a decade, clearly it started to have a health impact on Giselle. And we've talked about
04:41this before where she was having memory loss and other issues. But again, the key point about all
04:49of this is the fact doctors still to this day have no medical training on what clearly is a
04:55key critical problem. And just to wrap up, in recent weeks, we've seen a hashtag,
04:59not all men, that's actually been gaining traction on social media. Tell us a bit more about that
05:04campaign. There's no doubt, Jeannie, that this really is a historical moment in France. And I
05:10would argue it's actually the country's true Me Too moment, because it's not just men in positions
05:16of power and privilege, but it's ordinary men who've been caught up in all of this. And I asked,
05:22I guess, recently, Rachel Pardes-Flor, sorry, Rachel Flor Pardes, who's a French feminist
05:28lawyer, who's done a lot of work in women's rights, about the submergence of the not all men
05:34social media hashtag. And this is what she had to tell me. I see a lot on the social media lately,
05:41this hashtag saying that not all men, yes, not all men are rapists, but almost all rapists are men.
05:50Another thing that struck me is the support that Gisele Pellicot received. You see, when you are
05:58accusing somebody else of rape, it's not so common to have some woman applaud you at the outside of
06:05the courtroom. It's not so common to have these big protests that happened, like those that
06:11happened in France a few weeks ago to show support to Gisele Pellicot. So I guess we might be, and I
06:17hope we are, with some kind of cases that may maybe be a landmark in the feminist battle that we have
06:24in France, and maybe also abroad. Annette, thank you so much for giving us the very latest on that
06:29trial. It has truly shocked the country here in France. Thanks so much. Well, if you want the very
06:34latest on that or any of the stories we're covering for you, don't forget you can always
06:37check out our website. That address is France24.com.