‘It could be any man in the village’: France hunts ‘rapists’ of grandmother drugged by husband

In the small town of Mazan, Gisèle Pélicot was allegedly violated by 80 men at her partner’s behest – 30 have not yet been identified

It is a modest house with blue shutters in Mazan, a pretty Provencal village surrounded by the vineyards beneath Mont Ventoux.
Set behind a white iron gate and a tall cypress, this is the unassuming former home of Dominique Pélicot, the French pensioner on trial for drugging his wife and recruiting more than 80 men online allegedly to rape her as she lay unconscious in her bedroom while he filmed them.
Two weeks into proceedings at Vaucluse criminal court in Avignon, the “monster of Mazan” as media have dubbed the 71-year-old ex-electrician, has still not been cross-examined. The trial was adjourned on Friday because of his health problems and could be suspended if he is pronounced too unwell to attend.
Some 50 other male defendants have been identified and could face 20 years in prison for aggravated rape when the verdict comes in December. In revelations that have caused malaise in its tranquil streets, at least three are from Mazan itself, and most others from the surrounding area.
They were told to come in the dead of night and park 50 yards away in a car park next to a pétanque court and tennis club where Pélicot used to knock balls. In the daytime, shouts erupt from the playing fields of the adjacent lower secondary school.
Jean (not his real name), 71, a retired gendarme whose 91-year-old mother has lived in the neighbouring house for 40 years, said: “It’s incredible but I never heard or saw anything and I slept in a bedroom right next to their front gate.
“I’m furious because lots of people have come and taken pictures of my mother’s house. It’s the wrong one,” he said.
“Of course I knew the Pélicots. They were an easygoing, nice couple.”
“I was once invited to an evening drink with them and again at another neighbours’. It was perfectly cordial. We shot the breeze and sipped rosé,” he recalled. 
Little did he know that Pélicot often spiked his wife’s wine with the anti-anxiolytic Temesta to ensure she wouldn’t wake when naked strangers allegedly entered the room to satisfy her husband’s voyeuristic fantasies, which one expert likened to “necrophilia” given her comatose state.
Describing herself as outwardly strong but a “field of ruins” since learning of her husband’s avowed crimes, Gisèle Pélicot, 72, waived her right to a closed-door trial. She wanted to face her unknown alleged assailants and raise awareness about “chemical submission”. 
She has become a feminist figurehead overnight. A graffito appeared in Avignon this week: “They said she was broken. Gisèle is a fighter.”
“I knew her well,” said Jean’s mother, a sprightly nonagenarian who declined to be named. “We used to go for walks together when they first arrived around 2013.”
But she said she swiftly took against the husband. “Call it a sixth sense but when Gisèle invited me in for coffee, and he turned up, I left. There was something intrusive about him. 
“He would come over to our house and poke his nose around saying ‘I’ll take this and that’ in an obtrusive way. I told him to get out and then I stopped seeing them both.
“But I could never have guessed what was going on. I feel terribly sorry for Gisèle and have been trying to contact her. She knows where I am.”
Neighbour Michèle Ramel, who owns the Pélicots’ former home, concurred.
“He was haughty and superior, very full of himself. But Gisèle was a lovely person and we were friends. I never knew anything about all this.
“She came to say goodbye. We didn’t mention the whole case. How do you broach something like that? She was in a state of total shock. The sky had fallen on her head.”
“All this is terrible for Mazan. It’s a lovely tranquil place, which is why it attracts so many pensioners in search of la vie douce.” 
The tourist office of the village, population 6,000, boasts a local Ventoux wine appellation, olive oil, asparagus and strawberries.
It was also briefly known for hosting British actress Keira Knightley’s wedding and has an 18th-century chateau that once belonged to the Marquis de Sade. “Sadism” was a term heard in court last week.
“I was born here. Now they are calling it ‘le village du viol’ [the village of rape],” said Mrs Ramel.
In the village’s Le Siècle cafe-restaurant, Vincent Flegon, the 60-year-old co-owner, flicked through the local newspaper La Provence. “Who are ‘les 50’?” asked the front page, referring to the defendants.
Mr Flegon said: “Look at them. They’re all Monsieur Tout le Monde [your average Joe] – a male nurse, a soldier, a fireman, a joiner.”
He had scrawled in biro the Christian names of three blurred figures on the front-page photo gallery. “Those three came from Mazan. I knew them well, they were regulars. I was a regular too until I bought the place two years ago,” he said.
“The human being is bizarre and unfathomable. One of the guys I knew is a young dad, a really nice bloke. Who knows who else was involved.”
“There will be more surprises,” he added, referring to the fact that police have so far failed to identify a further 30-odd men implicated. “It could be anyone,” he said, waving to the all-male line of regulars at the zinc counter.
Some are asking whether Mazan needs psychological counselling.
Cécile Paulin, a massage therapist who runs a women’s centre in the village said she would like to open “a space where people can speak out”.
“We have to talk about this so that it doesn’t happen again. We can’t just pretend it never happened.”
Most women in the village expressed deep admiration for Ms Pélicot.
Annie Viau, the 62-year-old village baker, said: “I’d like to meet her and give her a hug. She’s a woman with courage and aplomb. It’s good to talk about it because unfortunately it has and will happen to others.”
“A customer came in the other day and criticised her for having her photo in the paper. I told him: ‘So you think she should hide? You’re forgetting she’s the victim.’
“She is so brave to face her husband and these rapists openly. I served one of the accused but he’s since moved out.”
Further out, Elodie Fellon, 37, a wine seller, said she was appalled by one defence lawyer’s attempts to insinuate that his clients had not technically committed rape because under French law “it is not necessary to have obtained the victim’s consent”.
Mrs Fellon said: “When they arrived, they could see that the lady was totally asleep. They must have known at some point and went ahead with it. We need to catch up with other countries like the US on this.”
At present, French law defines rape as “sexual penetration, committed against another person by violence, constraint, threat or surprise” but does not explicitly include the question of consent. Emmanuel Macron, the president, backs changing the law.
In court, Ms Pélicot shot down such defence arguments. “They didn’t rape me with a gun to my head. They raped me with a clear conscience,” she told the packed room.
This week, Aurore Bergé, France’s outgoing gender equality minister, said the case made it clear that “the law needs to be changed and the issue of consent needs to be written in black and white in the penal code”.
As Mazan wrestles with its newfound notoriety, Christelle Taraud, a historian and feminist writer, said the case spotlit something French society didn’t want to see: the men involved were not “monsters”.
“It’s unbearable for society to say to itself that these people are not Jack the Rippers or sadistic perverts, as it would be all too easy to believe,” she told La Provence newspaper.
Citing figures for conjugal violence, rape, and femicides in France and other countries, she said that “all men are potentially capable of violence against women”.
Ms Taraud continued: “It is a reality that nobody wanted to face until very recently. [By] facing her aggressors and casting them into oblivion [Ms Pélicot] is making choices for all of us and we should thank her for that.”