Gisèle Pelicot on Her Remarkable Story of Survival: ‘Today, I Am Rising From the Ashes’

In the fall of 2024, each of her appearances at the Avignon courthouse was met with thunderous applause. Women came to give her armfuls of flowers, some burst into tears when they touched her, and hundreds of others wrote her moving letters. Her name appeared on posters in the streets of the city and her face on murals on the other side of the world. By refusing to close the doors—by opening wide the doors of her husband’s trial—and by facing the cameras of the whole world every day with her head held high, Gisèle Pelicot, drugged by her husband and raped while she was “asleep” by dozens of men, became an icon.

She, who until then had reserved her words for the courtroom, now opens her heart in a book—A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides (published February 17)—that has already been translated into 22 languages. The French title, Et la joie de vivre (or, “And the Joy of Living”) may seem surprising at first glance, given that the rape case was such a descent into depravity, but it becomes clear as you read the story: Gisèle Pelicot, a “little soldier of happiness,” reveals a life marked by tragedy and grief, which she recounts while choosing to remain joyful, no matter what happens.

As we prepare for the photo shoot, questions come flooding in. How can we photograph someone who has already been photographed so many times? How can we stay true to who she has decided to be today without overlooking what she has been through in the past? Since posing for the cover of her book, this is the second time she has lent herself to this strange exercise. Pelicot is at ease, however. She stares at the camera, smiles, focused. “She got used to being stared at during the trial, with all the cameras,” explains a close friend present at the shoot. “In the end, she didn’t even notice them anymore.”

A few days later, we met her for a long interview. We were intimidated, but she was radiant, smiling, disarmingly frank, and anxious to know how the most eagerly awaited book of the year would be received: “I wondered if people would say, ‘Her again!’ Or worse, ‘Gisèle Pelicot, this is going to be juicy…’” She confided that she had worked with her co-author, journalist Judith Perrignon, to ensure that the story was never vulgar or voyeuristic, always modest and completely sincere. The text is striking in its dignity and delicacy, portraying a woman who refuses hatred and anger. A woman of astonishing strength.

“I didn’t want to talk about the trial,” she explains, “everything has already been said. I wanted people to get to know me. Resilience is something I grew up with!” We also discover a woman in love, a giddy 73-year-old: “Have you seen how handsome he is?” pointing to Jean-Loup, her new partner, who dotes on her and never leaves her side. But when her press representative inadvertently says “your husband,” Gisèle Pelicot exclaims, “Oh no! My lover! Marriage, never again! I’m a free spirit.”

The last time we saw each other, you were leaving the court in Avignon, just after the verdict, and there was a rally. How are you today?

I’m better. Through this book, I’ve been able to look inward, to take stock of my life. I’m trying to rebuild myself on this field of ruins, and I think I’m on the right track. I’ll never be able to forget what happened. The scar is still raw. But now I ask myself, What do we do with all this mud? Because yes, it’s as if I had been plunged into a torrent of mud…I’ve decided to bring color back into my life. We have to turn all this into something noble. Today, I am rising from the ashes.

Hence the title, Et la joie de vivre, which is magnificent, but may come as a surprise. How did you choose it and why?

The title also refers to a family saga. It is the journey of three generations, three women, with their joys, sorrows, and resilience. My strength and positivity were passed on to me by my grandmother, and especially by my mother. She fell ill at a very young age, at 28, and died at 35 from a brain tumor. Despite her illness, she never cried in front of me, she always kept smiling, even in the worst moments. Towards the end, she had lost a lot of weight and had no breasts, so she would put oranges in her blouse, and she and her sister would laugh like two little accomplices. I always saw a woman who seemed happy, because I think she was happy with my father. However, they were often apart because he was a career military man. I spent a lot of time with my mom and little time with my dad. All of this shapes a person’s personality.

Is that also what you wanted to convey with this book, how you developed yourself, your story, long before all of this?

It was important to return to childhood because I experienced some tragedies. My grandmother lost a little girl who died after being scalded. This devastated woman never faltered in my eyes. And she never stopped mourning. Then, my mother disappeared. This fear of death haunted me from a very young age. I remember one evening when we were watching television, my grandmother came in and said she had put a hot water bottle on my mother’s feet, but they were still cold. She had died with her eyes open. When my father closed her eyes, I shook her, thinking she would wake up. I was 9 years old. I understood that I would not be a little girl like the others. Dad was devastated by grief, my brother was also very unhappy, and I said to myself, “I have to be strong, I have to comfort them.” The roles were reversed….That’s how I grew up. It was important to understand how I was formed, what my life had been like, because although my name, my face, and what I had endured had made an impression on public opinion, no one knew who I was at the end of the trial. And I don’t want to be just the victim, the woman chemically subjugated by her husband and offered up to dozens of rapists.

Some people criticized you for this strength during the trial: “Why isn’t she crying more? Why isn’t she breaking down?”

I have a sense of modesty that prevents me from crying in front of others. I don’t share that suffering. That doesn’t mean I’m not immensely sad. I have moments of sadness, but I keep them to myself. I am focused on the future. Hatred and anger do not interest me. They do not build anything, they destroy, and I have been destroyed enough as it is. I cannot take credit for this, it must be genetic!

You even say that you decide to be happy…

Yes, I strive for happiness and joie de vivre. My friends sometimes ask me, “How do you do it?” I don’t know, maybe it’s because of the example set by the women in my family? That’s why I honor them in the book. Talking about my mother’s light and smile is like keeping her alive.

One scene in the book stunned us: On Nov. 2, 2020, when you leave the police station, where an officer has revealed to you that you have been raped and sedated for years by your husband, you go home and your first instinct is to vacuum.

On Sept. 19, 2020, Mr. Pelicot told me he had been summoned to the police station because he had done something “stupid.” I was stunned, and for some reason, I thought he had committed a robbery. In fact, he confessed that he had taken photos up women’s skirts, that he had had an impulse. I said to him, “Listen, you’re going to apologize to those women, you’re going to see a therapist, I’m not going to abandon you, I’m going to help you.” And I also told him that if he did it again, I’m leaving. So then we are summoned to appear again at the police station on Nov. 2, 2020, at 9:30 A.M. Later, during the investigation, I learned that he had raped me and had me raped on the nights of October 3, 10, and 21! Did he pick up the pace because he knew it would all be over soon?

On November 2, when I entered the police officer’s office, the interview immediately struck me as strange. He asked me if we had friends, if we had people over, what our evenings were like, if I was into swinging! I was stunned, shocked. I replied, “Never in a million years!” And then the lieutenant said to me, “Your husband is in custody, and what I’m about to show you is not going to make you happy.” He showed me photos of a sleeping woman being raped. She was dressed up, dressed like a prostitute. I said it wasn’t me, it wasn’t my clothes. But it was my room, my nightstand, my bedside lamp…I thought it was a photomontage, I couldn’t believe it was real. The police officer brought a psychologist into the office. All I wanted was to be at home, to be with my dog and go for a walk. When I got home, my house was in disarray; the police had searched it from top to bottom looking for the drugs. So yes, I vacuumed, I cleaned, but I needed to clean what was in my head! I told myself that it was all a lie, that someone had it in for Mr. Pelicot….How could I admit that, for 50 years, I hadn’t seen anything, that you had fallen into hell? So yes, like a robot, completely stunned, I tidied up, I put a load of laundry on, washed his pajamas, hung his underwear on the clothesline.

You call Dominique Pelicot “the man with two faces”: the man who was your tormentor but also your lifeline. Was it important for you to show that side of him too?

Yes. We met when we were very young, at age 19. I was madly in love with him. He was my first man, we waited nine months before sleeping together, and he respected that. Which is crazy, when I see what happened later! He wasn’t happy in his family….Our relationship was almost a pact to ward off misfortune. We wanted to have children and be happy. We always supported each other, I always supported him, whether it was in his chaotic career, during his illness, when he had cancer….For me, that’s what life together was all about—getting married for better or for worse. For me, I thought the worst was death or illness. After this cataclysm, I started over from scratch, with only two suitcases and my dog. I sold all my furniture and I left like a 20-year-old girl starting out in life.

You write that you’ve always been afraid of dying and afraid of the night…

When I was little, I couldn’t sleep in the dark, I always needed a light, or else I slept with my brother. My mother’s death affected me so deeply that I associated death with sleep. Even today, I don’t sleep very well. When Mr. Pelicot worked nights, I listened to the radio program Ligne ouverte au cœur de la nuit (“Open Line in the Middle of the Night”) on Gonzague Saint Bris, on Europe 1, and I would fall asleep just as I heard the key turn in the lock, knowing that he had come home.

You never knew anything about the rapes because you were heavily sedated, but you describe the very disturbing nightmares you had for years…

When we lived in Gournay-sur-Marne, I often dreamed that two men entered my room, guns in hand, and that I hid under my bed. In my dream, I could see their feet, and my only fear was that they would lift the bed frame and discover me. At the time, I didn’t try to understand these nightmares. I pushed them out of my mind and attributed them to the poor sleep that had always tormented me. Later, I had another dream in which I saw a man and a woman ringing our doorbell and then telling me that a woman wanted to file a complaint against Mr. Pelicot. Some time later, he was arrested.

And despite these dreams, despite physical symptoms too, you never suspected anything?

No. When I started having blackouts, I thought I was going to die of a brain tumor, like [my] mom. I consulted doctors. I talked to Mr. Pelicot about it, and he said, “No, I know there’s nothing wrong with you. Stop worrying, you’re going to upset the children for no reason.” But I’ve always had an excellent memory, and I couldn’t remember what I had done the day before, and it was happening more and more often. In the book, I recount an appointment at the hairdresser’s. Mr. Pelicot drove me there, I remember pushing open the door to the salon, and then everything went black. The next day, my hair was colored and trimmed a little, but I couldn’t remember a thing. So I went back to see the hairdresser. She said to me, “You really scared us, we thought you were having a stroke. Your face was frozen, you had no expression, we talked to you, but there was no reaction.” She even warned my husband, advising him to take me to see a doctor.

I saw several neurologists. The first one talked about a “cerebral stroke,” the second one said I was anxious and prescribed melatonin. I had a CT scan, which revealed nothing. My blackouts became more frequent, and I would sometimes sleep all afternoon….One doctor finally told my son-in-law that I had all the early signs of Alzheimer’s. I also sought treatment for gynecological infections. But all these specialists, who had never heard of chemical submission, considered these symptoms to be those of an anxious old lady. After Mr. Pelicot’s arrest, I went to the forensic emergency room in Versailles, where I was diagnosed with four STDs. I was put on antibiotics, but one remained, the papillomavirus. I had to undergo surgery last November. All because of those individuals who raped me.

Some people refused to believe that you hadn’t noticed anything over all those years, even claiming that it was impossible…

My husband accompanied me to the doctor; he even made the appointments. I know now that he was misleading me, manipulating me, but at the time I felt that he was my ally, that he was looking out for me. As for strange things, there were some, like the beer he served me one day, which had a strange green color. I pointed it out to him, saying I would take it back to the store, but he jumped up and emptied it down the sink. There was even that time when, not remembering at all what I had done the night before, I said, as a joke, “You wouldn’t be drugging me, would you?” His reaction was surprising. He broke down in tears and said, “Do you realize what you’re saying to me?” And I apologized profusely…

One of my daughters-in-law told me that my subconscious must have suspected something. Maybe. Since his arrest, I’ve spent days reviewing all those moments and reading them as signs. But at the time, even if I had had suspicions, I could never have imagined what was discovered, the extent of his plot, his network of rapists, his crimes—all of this is beyond imagination. Even the police officer who saved me by seizing Mr. Pelicot’s computer after his arrest at the supermarket said he was shocked when he discovered its contents. So how could I have imagined that the man with whom I had built my whole life, the man I had loved for half a century, was capable of hurting me so much? I lived with the conviction that nothing could happen to me with him.

What’s staggering is that after the announcement at the police station, you no longer see your house in the same way. You write: “It’s full of hiding places and secrets.”

After his arrest, the police found sleeping pills hidden in my hiking boots: Temesta, zolpidem, and a powerful muscle relaxant. They also found women’s stockings in his car. When they took down a painting of a naked woman from behind, which he had painted, they discovered the title written on the back: “L’Emprise” (“The Hold”).

Does it scare you knowing that of the 53 men accused of rape—two have died, but there are still about 30 out there who haven’t been arrested?

Yes, it’s worrying to think about all those rapists walking free. Worrying for so many other women. But I don’t want to become paranoid and think that the man who says, “hello, ma’am,” to me in the street might be one of them. In Avignon, during the trial, when we had lunch at a restaurant near the courthouse, as we were paying, the waiter said to me, “The gentleman sitting over there has paid the bill.” So I went to thank him and told him that it made me uncomfortable, and he gave me the big speech: “I know you’ve lost everything…” And when I asked him where he lived, he replied with the name of a town not far from my house. I thought to myself, maybe he’s one of the rapists, or maybe he was just moved by my story and wanted to do something kind and generous for me…but I admit, the first thought did cross my mind.

In your book, we discover you and your husband’s contrasting trajectories: In your work, you climb the ladder, you flourish, while he withers away, caught in a spiral of failure. Did he want to dominate a woman who was slipping away from him?

I never felt that way, I never made any distinction, what was mine was his, and sometimes it worked out for him too. When he says I was the love of his life, I believe him. But how can you treat the woman you call the love of your life like that? How could he look me straight in the eye when we had breakfast together in the morning, knowing what he had done the night before?

How were you able to bear watching those videos?

For years, I didn’t want to watch them; I only saw them very late on. At first, I didn’t want anyone to know who I was, to recognize me. It was only in May 2024 that I decided to lift the veil of secrecy. My daughter Caroline had suggested I do so a few years earlier, but I wasn’t ready. It took me four years! One day, I was walking on the beach, thinking about the upcoming trial, and I said to myself, “I mustn’t be alone facing all these guys, the shame must shift to the other side. If I don’t make a move, no one will.” For me, refusing to close the doors to the public was also a way of helping others. I told my partner, who replied that he would support me whatever my decision. My children had the same reaction. And I informed my lawyers. That’s when they told me I had to watch the videos, which would be shown during the trial and could therefore be seen by everyone.

How did you feel?

I isolated myself, I watched the first one….It was violent, but I didn’t recognize the woman on the screen. It wasn’t me. It was a carcass. She is lifeless, she has no consciousness. I watched these individuals—I won’t go into details, I didn’t see everything that day, but I saw a good dozen. I needed to isolate myself afterwards, I walked for two hours, I cried a lot. Then I came back and said to my partner, “It’s done, we’re not going to ruin the day, we’re going to have lunch!”

Where do you get this strength from?

I couldn’t say, it’s like survival instincts that have developed over time since childhood. I’m talking about a flaw that follows me throughout the book, which of course began when I was 9 and my mother died. I don’t want to fall apart; I don’t have the right to. I’ve seen too many people collapse. So I listen to myself. And when the case exploded, I listened to myself. I needed time to watch the videos, I needed solitude, and rather than live with my children, I chose to distance myself on the Île de Ré. And then I chose lawyers who understand me and protect me from the violence of this case, Antoine Camus and Stéphane Babonneau. We met for the first time on video chat. They are 42 and 47 years old—they could be my children! I told them my story and warned them that I had no money. They replied, “Don’t worry, we’ll defend you as if you were our mother.” Later, I asked them why they had agreed to take my case, and they replied, “Because you were the very embodiment of resilience.”

Your decision to refuse to be behind closed doors also showed your determination not to find yourself alone facing these men you call “bastards.” How did you feel when you saw their faces?

Many of them stared at me, waiting for me to lower my eyes. They stared at me, I stared at them, and in the end, they were the ones who looked away. I made it clear to them that I would stand tall and that the shame would be on them, not me. I went through hell, I suffered, I felt outrage, humiliation…but no, I don’t feel hatred. I hoped they would all be found guilty, and that’s what happened. It was a victory for me.

You write that the crowd saved you. What do you mean by that?

I am glad that my story has become an example, and my name a banner, because I saw this crowd gradually transform the pain of a trial into a liberating song. Every day, more and more women came. It was phenomenal, wonderful. They gave me incredible strength.

You received hundreds of letters at the Avignon courthouse. What did these women write to you?

My story echoed their suffering. Some had been abused at a very young age. One of them had a daughter who wanted to change sex to break the cycle of misfortune that befell the women in her family. Another even told me that her cousin in Iran had been touched by my story. Men also wrote to me, Spanish men, because there is a story there that is somewhat similar to mine. These letters are so beautiful, you can’t imagine. I often cried when I read them. The introduction of non-consent into the criminal definition of rape is an undeniable step forward, but laws are useless if we don’t change attitudes. The younger generations are here to change this patriarchal society, and I have great faith in them. I just did my small part.

Were you able to read all those letters?

No, I didn’t open them all, because I had to protect myself too. I keep them safely in a beautiful box in my office. Sometimes I read one. This book is also a way of responding to them, thanking them, and giving these women a message of hope.

At the trial, you were always very elegant, you paid attention to your outfits, why?

I was criticized for that, even my dignity was criticized! I should have arrived in rags and devastated, that would have been a spectacle and a victory for the defendants. Never! Elegance was a way of straightening up this tortured body, restoring everything that rape seeks to destroy. Affirming that I am standing tall.

Neither warrior nor destroyed, neither victim nor icon, “I was the little soldier of happiness,” you write. Do you still feel like the little soldier of happiness?

Yes, I still am. And if things aren’t going well, I have three remedies: walking, music, and chocolate.

You are also a woman in love…

It just happened to me. I never imagined I would fall in love again, or even want to. Meeting Jean-Loup changed my life. We met through friends on the Île de Ré…I thought he didn’t know my story, so I made him talk about himself. He had just lost his wife to a degenerative disease after 30 years of marriage, and he had been incredibly supportive throughout. Then he confided in me that he knew what had happened to me, that he had read an article about me in Le Monde. He could have run away, but he didn’t.

How did you manage to trust a man, to start a new relationship?

I trust people, that’s how I work. It’s my strength, and my revenge too. And he is an extraordinary guy, he had a happy childhood, which is reassuring. At his son Victor’s wedding last summer, I found a little card on my plate: “Thank you for your joie de vivre and thank you for making Dad happy.” We are truly happy and in love. So I can testify that you should never lose heart: I am 73 years old and I am in love! Love is everything; I don’t know how to live if I don’t love. Even though I loved living alone.

Had that ever happened to you before?

No, I left my parents to live with Mr. Pelicot. After his arrest, loneliness was my companion for three years. I learned who I really was, and I also experienced a certain freedom. I spent Christmas alone, with my dog and a TV dinner of bread and goat cheese, but it wasn’t painful at all. You eat what you want, when you want, you watch whatever you want, you go to bed when you feel like it, you live without having to answer to anyone. I enjoyed all that, that lightness and freedom.

You have become a feminist figure. Why do you call it “a feminism I know little about”?

I am a feminist in my own way. I have always been financially independent and have never let myself be led by the nose, either in my personal or professional life. I have always believed that women and men should be equal in every way. Opposing closed-door meetings is, in a way, a feminist gesture, even if I didn’t anticipate its impact at all.

You say you want to visit Dominique Pelicot in prison. Why?

I need answers, and because we haven’t been alone together since we went to the police station on Nov. 2, 2020. Why did he do that? Why did he betray us like that? Why didn’t he ever try to stop it?