Until the end, Gisèle Pelicot thought of others before thinking of herself. The main victim of the Mazan rape trial reacted to the verdict, delivered on Thursday, December 19, by speaking to all victims of sexual violence. “I am thinking of the unrecognised victims, whose stories often remain in the shadows. I want you to know that we are sharing the same fight,” she said in a brief statement at midday. But, she added, “I am now confident in our ability to collectively seize a future in which everyone, women and men, can live in harmony, respect and mutual understanding.”
First Reaction To The Verdict
Just after this statement, she answered a single journalist’s question and reacted to the verdict, in particular criticised by her children and feminist associations because of sentences that were less severe than expected. Indeed, while Dominique Pelicot was sentenced to the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, most of the other co-defendants received sentences that were lower than those requested by the prosecutor’s office.
Gisèle Pelicot, on the other hand, says she “respects” the decision of the Vaucluse criminal court. A member of the Pelicot family had earlier told AFP that the couple’s three children, David, Caroline and Florian, were “disappointed” with the “low” sentences handed down by the five professional magistrates of the court.
The article was originally published in ELLE France
