Gisèle Pelicot

Gisèle Pelicot (pronunciation ; born 7 December 1952) is a French woman who was the victim in the Mazan mass rape case. From 2011 to 2020, her then-husband, Dominique Pelicot, drugged and raped her and also invited at least 51 men to rape her while she was unconscious.^[1][2] Pelicot did not know about the abuse until 2020, when Dominique Pelicot was arrested for taking pictures of women under their skirts in a local supermarket.^[1]

During her ex-husband's rape trial in 2024, Pelicot did not want her identity or the trial to be anonymous. The trial received worldwide attention and Pelicot was seen as a hero.^[3]

After the trial, Pelicot became a feminist icon and featured in the BBC's 2024 list of 100 women of the year and the Financial Times list of the 25 most influential women of the year.^[4][5][6] On 20 December, the day after the verdicts, Gisèle appeared on front pages of newspapers across Europe.^[7] On the same date, British journalist Catherine Mayer set up a petition calling for Gisèle to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.^[8] On 2 January 2025, Gisèle was named personality of the year in a French opinion poll, narrowly beating Donald Trump.^[9]

Pelicot was born on 7 December 1952 in the city of Villingen in the southern part of West Germany. She is the daughter of a French soldier. She arrived in France when she was five and her mother died of cancer when she was nine. In 1971, she met her future husband, Dominique Pelicot.^[10] They married in April 1973 and settled in the Paris suburb of Villiers-sur-Marne.^[11][12] A son, David, and a daughter, Caroline, were born in the early years of the marriage; they were followed by Florian, born in 1986.^[11]