In a landmark trial that has shocked France, more than 50 men stand accused of raping 72-year-old grandmother Gisèle Pelicot while she lay unconscious, drugged by her then husband. Taking the stand Wednesday in Avignon, Pelicot faced his alleged attackers with remarkable determination: “I express neither my anger nor my shame. I express a desire to change society.”

The case has exposed worrying gaps in French law and sparked nationwide protests calling for reforms. Pelicot says she was “sacrificed on the altar of vice” by her ex-husband Dominique, who admitted to regularly drugging her food and inviting men to rape her while he filmed the attacks.

Pelicot described how Dominique, her ex, slipped drugs into her meals or into ice cream he would bring her after dinner, according to Sky News and The telegraph. Dominique previously told the court that he regularly crushed drugs in his wife’s food, including in her favorite dessert – raspberry ice cream. At the time, Gisèle believed he was lovingly attentive to her.

“I used to tell him, ‘How lucky I am, you’re a darling, you really look after me,'” Gisèle told the court, according to the BBC.

Gisèle has chosen to have an open trial so that “all women who (are) victims of rape can say to themselves ‘Madame Pelicot did it, we can do it’. I don’t want them to be ashamed anymore”, she insisted on Wednesday, according to the French news agency Le Monde. “The shame is not ours to feel,” she added. “It’s theirs.”

“I’ve been told I’m brave. This is not being brave, it’s having the will and determination to change society,” she said. “Courage means jumping into the ocean to save someone. I just have the will and determination.” she said.

“That’s why I come here every day. … Even though I hear unspeakable things, I hold on because of all the men and women who are right behind me.”

While some defendants have admitted raping Ms Pelicot, most argue they cannot be guilty because they did not realize she was unconscious. The Guardian profiles of the accused reveal disturbing details: one missed the birth of his daughter while allegedly abusing Gisèle, while another admitted he was “not interested” in unconscious women because he liked to hear women scream. He continued anyway and later apologized in court.

The crimes have shaken the small community of Mazan. Of the more than 80 men videotaped raping Gisèle, only 50 have been identified. “I admit that when I’m at the post office or somewhere else, I say to myself, ‘Well, this guy, I wonder if he went to see Madame Pelicot,'” said Elizabeth Koenig, 72, who lives just a few blocks from Pelicot’s former home. After attending the trial with his grandson, Koenig left “as red as a poppy” with rage. “It’s a disaster” she told the New York Times, adding that she imagined the horror of learning that a family member is “hurting my children or my grandchildren in that way. It feels personal, this story.”

Inspiring change

Recently, around 500 people marched from Mazan to a nearby farm to show support for Gisèle, while thousands more have marched in other places around the country. There are protesters outside the courtroom every day, there to support Gisèle and demand change.

There is hope that the Pelicot case could lead to changes in the culture and controversial French laws governing sexual consent.

The wife of one of the men accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot told the court that because her mother had been ill she had not wanted to have sex with him for a long time and excused his behaviour. “I think because I refused him all the time, as a man he had to look elsewhere.” reports The Guardian.

Gisèle told the court that rapists are not just “someone who meets in a parking lot late at night. A rapist can also be in the family, among our friends.” Her lawyer, Stéphane Babonneau, told the court his client “couldn’t help but react”. He said, “You thought that because you refused a sexual relationship because your mother was very ill and you were thinking of other things, that you had a role in what happened. For Gisèle Pelicot, it is not because you refused a sexual relationship that it led to this happening.

“Because there is never an obligation to have sexual relations with your husband. Do you understand that? Gisèle Pelicot says that you have no responsibility whatsoever in the fact that your husband decided to do what he did.”

French law desperately needs updating, protesters and lawmakers alike say. Until 1980, rape was narrowly defined by Napoleon’s law as “unlawful intercourse with a woman known not to consent,” with most cases tried as misdemeanors, according to French radio station RFI. Although the 1980 law redefined rape as “any sexual penetration committed upon another person by force, coercion, or surprise,” it still does not address consent.

France finally introduced a legal age of sexual consent in 2021, following public outcry over rape of an 11-year-old is being prosecuted as the lesser charge of sexual assault. According to a study by Institute for Public Policyonly 14% of rape allegations lead to formal investigations. Legal expert Catherine Le Magueresse explains: “The law requires victims to fit the stereotype of a ‘good victim’ and a ‘true rape’: an unknown assailant, violence and victim resistance. But this only represents a minority of rapes.”

Justice Minister Didier Migaud and President Emmanuel Macron now support an update to the law, especially after France blocked a consensual rape definition in a European directive last year. “I think it is beyond comprehension for our citizens to refuse to include consent in the definition of rape,” Migaud recently told lawmakers.

The Pelicot trial, which is expected to conclude before Christmas, could be the catalyst needed for change.