As campaigners against sexual violence protested outside the courthouse, she expressed “my profound gratitude towards the people who supported me”.

“Your messages moved me deeply, and they gave me the strength to come back, every day, and survive through these long daily hearings,” she said. “This trial was a very difficult ordeal.”

The appalling ordeal inflicted over nearly a decade on Gisele Pelicot, now a 72-year-old grandmother, in what she thought was a loving marriage, and her courage during the bruising and stunning trial has transformed the retired power company worker into a feminist hero of the nation.

Stretching over more than three months, the trial galvanised campaigners against sexual violence and spurred calls for tougher measures to stamp out rape culture.

Dominique Pelicot and 49 other men were tried in the southern French city of Avignon for aggravated rape and attempted rape.

Prosecutors had asked that he get the maximum penalty and for sentences of 10 to 18 years for the others. They had also requested a four-year prison term for another defendant who was tried for aggravated sexual assault.

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Of the 50 men accused of rape, just one was acquitted but was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault.

The defendants were all accused of having taken part in Dominique Pelicot’s sordid rape and abuse fantasies that were acted out in the couple’s retirement home in the small Provence town of Mazan and elsewhere.

Dominique Pelicot testified that he hid tranquillisers in food and drink that he gave his then wife, knocking her out so profoundly that he could do what he wanted to her for hours.

One of the men was on trial not for assaulting Gisele Pelicot but for drugging and raping his own wife with the help and drugs from Dominique Pelicot, who was also tried for raping the other man’s wife.

The five judges voted by secret ballot in their rulings, with a majority vote required to convict and also for the sentences of those found guilty.

Campaigners against sexual violence are hoping for exemplary prison terms and view the trial as a possible turning point in the fight against rape culture and use of drugs to subdue victims.

Gisele Pelicot’s courage in waiving her right to anonymity as a survivor of sexual abuse and successfully pushing for the hearings and shocking evidence – including videos – to be heard in open court have fuelled conversations both on a national level in France and among families, couples and groups of friends about how to better protect women and the role that men can play in that goal.

“Men are starting to talk to women – their girlfriends, mothers and friends – in ways they hadn’t before,” said Fanny Foures, 48, who joined other women from the feminist group Les Amazones in gluing messages of support for Gisele Pelicot on walls around Avignon before the verdict.

“It was awkward at first, but now real dialogues are happening,” she said.

“Some women are realising, maybe for the first time, that their ex-husbands violated them, or that someone close to them committed abuse,” Foures added. “And men are starting to reckon with their own behaviour or complicity — things they’ve ignored or failed to act on. It’s heavy, but it’s creating change.”

A large banner that campaigners hung on a city wall opposite the courthouse read “MERCI GISELE” – thank you Gisele.

Dominique Pelicot came to the attention of police in September 2020, when a supermarket security guard caught him surreptitiously filming up women’s skirts.

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Police subsequently found his library of homemade images documenting years of abuse inflicted on his wife — more than 20,000 photos and videos in all, stored on computer drives and catalogued in folders marked “abuse”, “her rapists”, “night alone” and other titles.

The abundance of evidence led police to the other defendants. In the videos, investigators counted 72 different abusers, but weren’t able to identify them all.

Although some of the accused, including Dominique Pelicot, acknowledged that they were guilty of rape, many didn’t, even in the face of video evidence. The hearings sparked wider debate in France about whether the country’s legal definition of rape should be expanded to include specific mention of consent.

Some defendants argued that Dominique Pelicot’s consent covered his wife, too. Some sought to excuse their behaviour by insisting that they hadn’t intended to rape anyone when they responded to the husband’s invitations to come to their home. Some laid blame at his door, saying he misled them into thinking they were taking part in consensual kink.

AP