Gisèle Pelicot, 73, has described the moment she fell in love and was able to trust again after surviving a decade-long rape ordeal orchestrated by her former husband, Dominique Pelicot.
Speaking at the Hay festival in Wales on Saturday, Pelicot - who waived her right to anonymity during the trial that saw Dominique jailed for 20 years in 2024 for drugging and raping her and enabling other men to assault her while unconscious - said she never thought she could trust a man again before meeting her partner, Jean-Loup Agopian.
“It’s something that I didn’t think could happen, especially at my age,” the campaigner said. “I didn’t really want to fall in love, but life decided otherwise. We met, our trajectories crossed at one moment and I met this young man of 73… You see, you can fall in love at any age, it happened to me, it can happen to you, I’m convinced of it.”
Pelicot appeared at the festival to discuss her memoir *A Hymn to Life* and was interviewed on stage by Lady Kennedy. She added that “society has got to wake up” on violence against women, calling it an “appalling evil that touches all borders.”