Defendants give shocking evidence at France's Pelicot mass rape trial

FRANCE 24 English

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  Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

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.

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