Monster of Avignon should be jailed for 20-years over mass rape of wife Gisele Pelicot, French prosecutors demand as they admit maximum available sentence is ‘too little’

The self-confessed French rapist who allowed dozens of men to rape his wife after drugging her should be jailed for up to 20 years, a prosecutor said today.

Attorney General Laure Chabaud on Monday called on Domique Pelicot, 71, to possibly spend the rest of his life in a cell.

He has admitted the ‘aggravated rape’ of 72-year-old ex-wife Gisele Pelicot, along with some of the fifty other men on trial with him.

Ms Chabaud, speaking at the Vaucluse criminal court in Avignon, said 20 years was all the law allowed.

‘What punishment should be imposed?’ she asked. “The maximum penalty is twenty years in prison, which is too much and too little considering the seriousness of the repeated attacks.”

Gisele Pelicot arrives at the criminal court in Avignon, France on November 25, 2024

Gisele Pelicot (C), flanked by her lawyer Stephane Babonneau (R), arrives at the Avignon courthouse today for the trial

Dominique Pelicot is accused of allowing multiple men to rape his wife while she was sedated

Ms Chabaud said Ms Pelicot, a mother of three, had been reduced to an “object” by men who only “used her for easy sex” for almost a decade.

Her ex-husband contacted them online and then invited them to the family home in Mazan, near Avignon, where they raped his drugged wife.

“The condition of Gisèle Pelicot, who was almost in a coma, should have raised the alarm,” Ms. Chabaud said.

“Rape is characterized by a lack of consent,” she added, saying there was no way the victim had voluntarily used drugs to put her to sleep as part of a “libertine game,” as the defense has suggested.

“What joy can she honestly get from it, without counting the side effects the next day,” Ms. Chabaud said.

Jean-François Mayet, the second attorney general on the case, said everything about the case was “extraordinary.”

Mr Mayet said: “These are the first words that came to mind when we were entrusted with the task of laying charges in this case.

‘This process has given rise to 59 volumes of judicial information, containing thousands of reports.

‘Our justice system is regularly criticized for being too slow. Let us be grateful that it managed to complete this extraordinary procedure in 31 months.

“The result of their work led to Dominique Pelicot being placed in police custody on November 2, 2020” and he has been in pre-trial detention since then.

Mr Mayet said “20,000 photos and videos” were found on Mr Pelicot’s devices, all of which show the demure Ms Pelicot, who is often subjected to gruesome acts.

The prosecutor turned to Ms. Pelicot, who was wearing a purple blouse in the courtroom, and said, “I salute your courage and the dignity with which you have spoken out during these long weeks of the hearing.”

Last week, both Pelicots made final statements in court.

Frenchwoman Gisele Pelicot leaves during a break in the trial of Dominique Pelicot with 50 co-suspects, at the courthouse in Avignon, France, November 19, 2024

Mrs Pelicot’s daughter Caroline gestures as she leaves the Avignon courthouse, November 20

David, one of the two sons of French Gisele Pelicot, is seen during a break in the trial of his father Dominique Pelicot with 50 co-defendants, at the courthouse in Avignon, November 19

The empty courtroom during a break in the trial against Dominique Pelicot, November 20, 2024

After his own son called him “the devil incarnate,” Mr. Pélicot made a personal plea to his family: “I thought they would be destroyed, but not to this extent.

“I have measured the damage my destruction has caused, and I bitterly regret it, but I want to emphasize that I never touched my children and grandchildren.”

In turn, Ms. Pélicot denounced the “cowards” who raped her and denounced “a macho, patriarchal society that trivializes rape.”

Ms Pélicot was accompanied in court by her youngest son, Florian Pélicot, 38, who told his father on Monday: “I am very grateful that our mother is still alive, but I have a lot of incomprehension about what our father did.”

Mr. Pélicot added: “You always said our mother was a saint. But you, you were the devil incarnate.”

All three of the couple’s adult children testified against Dominique Pélicot, who appears in court in a glass dock.

The retired electrician and real estate agent crushed sleeping pills into his wife’s food and drinks and then invited the strangers to rape her between 2011 and 2020.

He kept hundreds of rape videos on his computer in a file entitled ‘Abuse’, and has admitted the charges against him, telling the court: ‘I am a rapist.’

Some of his co-defendants admit to rape, while others say they did not know Gisèle Pelicot had been drugged, despite videos of her snoring loudly.

Gisele Pelicot talks to 50 co-defendants during the trial of her husband at the courthouse in Avignon, France, November 19

Gisele Pelicot (C) leaves the Avignon courthouse with her lawyers Antoine Camus (L) and Stephane Babonneau (R) during the trial, on November 20

A photo shows the entrance sign to Mazan, the town where Frenchwoman Gisele Pelicot was the victim of an alleged mass rape orchestrated by her husband Dominique Pelicot in their home

Ms Pélicot, a former logistics manager, has become a feminist icon after she said the trial raised awareness about the use of drugs to rape women.

Ms. Pélicot said she had suffered “barbaric acts” and that she “would not feel at peace until the end of my life.”

She added: “I’ll learn to live with it. I will rebuild myself. But there will forever be 51 people who have defiled me.”

Fourteen other men, in addition to her husband, have admitted to raping her, while the others deny the allegations, arguing that they believed Ms. Pélicot had consented to sex with them.

The trial continues and is expected to end on December 20.