why the trial will mark history

IN FRONT OF THE Judicial Court of Avignon (Vaucluse), this Wednesday in October, around fifty people have been waiting since 7 a.m. Suddenly, a shudder runs through the crowd. Gisèle Pelicot arrives, surrounded by her lawyers. Thunderous applause erupts, while cameras rush to film her. Elegant in her floral dress, Gisèle envelopes the court hall with her dignified look, a grateful smile for the audience – the vast majority of them women. Since September 2, the septuagenarian has confronted in the courtroom the man with whom she believed she shared a long, happy married life, before learning from the police that Dominique Pelicot had sexually delivered her, for years, to 50 recruited individuals. on the Internet, after having administered powerful anxiolytics.

This trial, already extraordinary, Gisèle Pelicot made it even more exceptional by choosing to open it to the public, thus marking a new stage in the fight against rape. “She understood that this cause was beyond her,” analyzes the historian of feminism, Christine Bard. By closing closed doors, she gave this trial a political purpose, that of changing our mentalities on rape and the place of women in our society. » The media coverage of the case is unparalleled: every day, the hall of the Avignon court welcomes more than 130 journalists from the written press or television. “My newspaper sent a court reporter to the trial for a week,” says Andrea Ritter, correspondent for the German weekly Stern . Throughout the world, the media are passionate about this case which brings together exceptional material evidence, Dominique Pelicot having filmed the rapes himself.

Raise awareness

No trial had had such an impact in France since that, in 1978, in Aix-en-Provence, of the three rapists of two Belgian campers in which Gisèle Halimi, their lawyer, had also deliberately refused to be held in camera. Forty years later, the time is ripe for the figure of the lawyer to fade behind that of the victim in order to raise awareness. In the era of the #MeToo movement, public opinion has made Gisèle Pelicot an icon, displayed on street walls and on social networks. Her face, bobbed and dark glasses, has become a standard for feminist collectives who organize demonstrations against rape throughout France. She, a woman like so many others, who could be a friend, a mother. They, his alleged attackers, just as ordinary in appearance and with no criminal record: a firefighter, a truck driver, journalists…

Here then, exposed in broad daylight, is what feminists constantly repeat and which society has so much difficulty accepting: the banality of evil. The trial of Gisèle Pelicot forces us to come out of denial. From now on, the expression “rape culture”, previously used by activist circles, is being used in comments and analyses. Sociologist Éric Fassin defines it as “a set of behaviors and opinions that minimize sexual violence. The 50 alleged attackers had non-consensual sex with Gisèle Pelicot without fear of being filmed. They did not even think that their actions could be reprehensible, and none notified the police. »

Change the law

A new debate is also opening, that on consent. Feminists see the Mazan affair as an opportunity to introduce this notion into the legal definition of rape, following the example of Belgium, Canada and Sweden. In our country, article 222-23 of the Penal Code refers to “violence”, “constraint”, “threat” or “surprise”, but not the explicit non-consent of the victim. Reason why, according to some feminists, many rapes go unpunished.

The Minister of Justice himself, Didier Migaud, declared himself in favor of such a reform. But other activists are opposed to it. “The attention of the justice system must be focused on the strategy of the aggressor, not on the consent of the victim and therefore their attitude at the time of the facts,” believes Emmanuelle Piet, president of the Feminist Collective Against Rape. Some magistrates are also reluctant on the grounds that qualifying rape as a “non-consensual sexual act” would amount to reversing the burden of proof. Or a legal revolution. It would no longer be a question of seeking to prove that the suspect committed a crime, but of requiring the latter to demonstrate having obtained the consent of the complainant. We are two months from the end of the hearings in Avignon. Public opinion holds its breath. But already, no one doubts that there will be a before and after the Mazan trial.