The world has known it during the sensational trial of its rapists in 2024, today it is among the 589 personalities distinct from the legion of honor, the highest honor in France.
She is Gisèle Pélicotunknowable smile and iron force, which in recent months has changed the way of seeing things, starting from a courtroom, the thousand facets, the part of those who have all the reasons and the right to affirm their self and their dignity.
During the trial in the south-east of France, which lasted between September and December 2024, it became a feminist icon, in particular after allowing the process to become public by refusing to keep it behind closed doors, so that the “shame changed side” and no longer weighed on the shoulders of the rape victims.
From 2011 to 2020, Dominique Pélicot He gave his wife tranquilizers and sleeping pills without his knowledge, crushed them and added them to his food and drinks, making them lose his memory and pass out.
Her ex -husband was sentenced to 20 years in prison in December and did not appeal. The 50 co -defendants, most of whom are recognized guilty of rape, aged between 27 and 74, were sentenced to three years in prison, two of which suspended, and 15 years in prison. Some have appealed.
After the so -called “trial for rape in Mazan”, Gisèle Pelicot received the award for freedom, awarded by 10,000 young people from 84 countries, “for its fight against the trivialization of rape and sexual violence”.
One of the “100 most influential people of 2025” was appointed by the Time magazine in mid -April and will publish his memories on January 27, 2026 in twenty languages.
Today, the legion of honor is also awarded, the highest French national distinction created in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte, who this year has rewarded 589 people “engaged in the general interest”.
The legion of honor is not enough, but …
Madame Pélicot strongly wanted that for Mazan rapes to be a process that would pass as an example, choosing to face him with his face discovered because “they are the one who had to be ashamed”. His intent has been and is to support the other women victims of violence, encouraging them to carry on their struggle for justice away from the boulder of shame or judgment, without even demort for a moment. Because this is what the judging company would like, alone and defeated with the finger aimed at.
I want the other women to think: if Mrs. Pélicot made it, I can do it too.
Are not the legion of honor and other awards? Someone says no. We say that, yes, they need to the extent that even those lead to making noise, not to pass the sacrosanct right of looking for justice unnoticed and subtracious, especially when the victim is one and only one and there is no doubt that it can be different.
Yes, Madame Pélicot made noise. He underlined the concrete urgency of changing point of view, of changing modus educandi and to start from the Verona who rather the executioners who have to try. We need a paradigm change that only a new narrative of the facts can hope. And Gisèle Pélicot is managing great.
