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Gisèle Pelicot, who survived nearly a ten years of rapes by dozens of men after being drugged by her ex-husband, is expected to attend court in France once more this Monday. This comes after one of the men convicted of raping her filed an appeal, triggering a second trial.

Pelicot emerged as a feminist icon after opting to forgo her anonymity during the 2024 trial involving her ex-husband and 50 other men. Her lawyer, Antoine Camus, stated that while she would have preferred the stress of another trial, she will be in attendance throughout the multi-day appeal at the Nîmes court in the south of France.

“Her presence is essential to explain that a rape is a rape, that there is no concept as a small rape,” Camus informed reporters.

Husamettin Dogan, a 44-year-old construction worker sentenced to nine years in prison for raping Pelicot, has challenged his conviction. The first trial revealed that Dogan contacted her then-husband through a chatroom and drove to their home the same night in June 2019, telling his own wife he was going out. He was found guilty of raping Gisèle Pelicot while she was unconscious.

Dogan claimed during the first trial that he believed it was a form of role-play. “I’m not a rapist, that’s too difficult for me to accept,” he said. His legal representative refused to comment before the appeal.

Initially, 17 of the 51 convicted men indicated they would appeal, but 16 dropped out over time, leaving only one appeal proceeding.

Dominique Pelicot, described as one of the most notorious sex offenders in recent French memory, was handed 20 years in prison for administering drugs to his then-wife and inviting multiple men to rape her at their home in southern France over nearly a decade of marriage.

Testimony in last year’s trial disclosed that Dominique Pelicot had crushed sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication into his wife’s food or drinks, then invited men to assault her in the town of Mazan in the French countryside. A total of 50 other men were convicted in the case.

Now serving a prison sentence in solitary confinement, Dominique Pelicot is scheduled to appear as a witness at the appeal. He is expected to repeat his earlier testimony: “I am a rapist and all the charged men in this room are rapists.”

Gisèle Pelicot, a 72-year-old former logistics manager, had insisted that the first trial be held in open court to raise awareness about drug-induced rape. “We should not feel ashamed, it’s for them,” she stated in court.

The case generated a significant effect globally, with feminist organizations across all continents supporting Gisèle Pelicot and world leaders issuing statements in her support.

However, activists and lawyers noted that the case exposed how widespread and frequent rape and sexual violence continues to be.

In a recent case, a 46-year-old man in Normandy was sentenced 12 years in prison for raping his partner while she was asleep on several occasions in 2022. Similar to Dominique Pelicot, he first came to police attention for filming up a woman’s skirt in a supermarket, and investigators later discovered videos of the assaults on his electronic devices.

The appeal in the Pelicot case takes place amid increasing criticism of the French justice system’s handling of rape. Several damning reports since the first trial have shown that the system continues to fail rape complainants on a large scale.

This year, the European Court of Human Rights condemned France for “failing to protect” the rights of three teenagers who reported rape.

One teenager who accused several firefighters of abuse was found to have suffered “re-traumatization and discriminatory treatment” by the French justice system, which did not act to protect her dignity “by permitting the use of moralising and guilt-inducing statements, which reinforced gender stereotypes.”

In another instance, France was found to have violated the European Convention on Human Rights in the case of a hospital pharmacist who filed a rape complaint against her supervisor.

This month, the High Council for Equality, an advisory body associated with the French prime minister’s office, reported that despite a tripling in rape complaints in France since the global #MeToo movement in 2016, the number of cases reaching court remains alarmingly small, with only 3.3% of complaints resulting in convictions.

More than 130 feminist groups are advocating for comprehensive changes at every level of the French justice system in addressing rape, calling for major funding increases and improved state support and prevention.

“The Pelicot case was a kind of electric shock, it enabled a lot of people to talk about rape and spousal assault. However, there has not really been a government action. There is a great deal missing in France, and serious dysfunction [in the justice system],” said Anne-Cécile Mailfert of the Fondation des Femmes.

Separately, parliament is currently debating adding a consent-based definition of rape into French law.

Marie-Charlotte Garin, a Green MP who backs rewording the law, stated that the Pelicot case had transformed French society’s understanding of consent and that updating the legal wording would help “a societal shift to move from a tolerance of assault to a respect for autonomy.”

However, Garin emphasized that wording by itself is insufficient to address persistent “shortcomings” of the entire French state toward rape survivors. “It requires a overhaul in the system to improve how we handle rape,” she said.