Five unanswered questions from the trial

French rape survivor Gisèle Pelicot walked out of a court in southern France for the last time on Thursday after her ex-husband was jailed for 20 years for drugging and raping her and inviting dozens of strangers to also abuse her for nearly a decade .

Dominique Pelicot, 72, was found guilty of all charges by a judge in Avignon. He was indicted with 50 other men, all of whom were found guilty of at least one count, although their prison terms were less than what prosecutors had sought.

Although the trial is over, questions still linger about the Pelicot case and what happens next.

When she climbed the steps of the courthouse in Avignon for the first time in September, no one knew Gisèle Pelicot’s name. Over the next 15 weeks, her fame as a rape victim who refused to be ashamed of what had been done to her skyrocketed.

As she left the court Thursdaycrowds of hundreds shouted her name and her picture was on the front pages of newspapers around the world.

She is now perhaps one of the most famous women in France. This means that even if she has changed her name, it will be impossible for her to return to the anonymity that served her so well as she tried to rebuild a life after the revelation of her husband’s crimes.

Gisèle is not the first person whose unimaginable suffering has made her an icon. At great personal cost, she has become the symbol of a fight she never chose. It therefore seems unlikely that she wants to become an outspoken activist against gender violence or a prominent feminist figure. On the contrary, she can go back to what she has said has always brought her comfort: music, long walks and chocolate – as well as her seven grandchildren.

“At the start of the trial, she said: “If I last two weeks, it will be a lot.” In the end, she reached three and a half months,” said her lawyer Stephane Babonneau. “Now she is at peace and relieved about it all.”

Days after Dominique Pelicot’s crimes came to light, his daughter Caroline Darian was called to the police station and shown pictures of an apparently unconscious woman dressed in unknown lingerie. She later said her life had “stopped” when she realized she was looking at pictures of herself.

Her father has always denied touching her, but Caroline – whose anguish and devastation was evident in many court appearances – has said she would never believe him and accused him of looking at her “with incestuous eyes”.

But the lack of evidence of the abuse Caroline believes she was subjected to has led her to say she is the “forgotten victim” of the trial. That notion has visibly seeped into her relationship with her mother. In her memoirs – published after her father’s arrest – she accused Gisèle of not showing enough support, implicitly choosing to side with her rapist’s ex-husband over her daughter.

Although Gisèle and her children have always sat next to each other in court, often whispering huddled together, there have been signs of what the trial has taken on their relationship.

On Friday, Caroline’s brother David highlighted – as he has done before – that the trial had not only been about Gisèle, but about their entire “wiped out family”.

“Us children felt forgotten,” he said. “Honestly, I feel that while our attorneys did a remarkable job of defending our mother, we were given a little less consideration.”

In her memoirs, Caroline lamented Gisèle’s “denial as a coping mechanism”.

“Because of my father,” she wrote, “I now lose my mother.”

Except for Dominique, all of the prison terms given to the defendants were less than what prosecutors had sought.

Several defense lawyers were visibly satisfied, meaning they are unlikely to encourage their clients to appeal their convictions. A man named Jean-Pierre Maréchal got 12 years – five less than prosecutors had asked for – and his lawyer Patrick Gontard told the BBC it was “out of the question” that he would appeal.

The months or years the men spent in custody will count towards their total sentences, meaning some could be released soon if they have served their minimum terms.

A man who faced 17 years ended up being sentenced to eight years in prison, and his lawyer Roland Marmillot told the BBC that because he had already spent several years in prison, he was likely to be released relatively soon.

Yet two men each jailed for eight years had already appealed the morning after the trial ended. More are expected to follow during the next ten days – the time period can be complained about.

Dominique Pelicot has admitted to assaulting and attempting to rape a 23-year-old estate agent, known by the pseudonym Marion, in the suburbs of Paris in 1999. A cloth soaked in ether was placed over her mouth, but she managed to fight the attacker off and he fled. It wasn’t until 2021, after he was arrested for the crimes he inflicted on his wife Gisèle, that Pelicot’s DNA was cross-checked with a spot of blood found on Marion’s shoe and he admitted his guilt.

However, he has denied any responsibility in another cold case – the rape and murder of another young estate agent, Sophie Narme, in 1991, for which there is no DNA. Investigators have argued that the two cases have too many similarities to be coincidental.

Other cold cases where similar modi operandi were used are also being revisited.

“There will be a ‘before’ and there will be an ‘after’ Pelicot case,” a Parisian man told the BBC in the early days of the trial.

For many, this feeling has only grown over the past few months, with intense media coverage of the Pelicot case generating countless conversations about rape, consent and gender-based violence.

“What we have to do is get much, much harsher sentences,” Nicolas and Mehdi, two Mazan residents, told the BBC. They said they were “disgusted” when they found out one of the defendants was a man they had played football with.

“With longer sentences they will at least think twice before doing something like this,” they said, adding that it was “crazy unfair” that some of the men could be released from prison in the next few months.

However, it is worth noting that the risk of incurring 20 years in prison for aggravated rape did not deter Dominique Pelicot from offering his unconscious wife to be raped by strangers he met online.

There have been calls to reform French rape law to include consent, but this has stalled in the past and would require significant work in the currently divided French parliament.

Some have argued that schools have a responsibility to better teach new generations about sex, love and consent. Béatrice Zavarro, Dominique Pelicot’s lawyer, has said that she believes “change will not come from the Ministry of Justice, but from the Ministry of Education.”

Françoise, a resident of the area where Gisèle and Dominique Pelicot used to live, told the BBC that she believes there needs to be a way to bridge the gap between what children are taught in schools and the type of material they have access to online.

“Young people are so exposed to sex on the internet and at the same time schools are very restrictive,” she said. “They should be much more open and honest in matching and explaining what children see.”

What these exchanges show is that while it will take time for changes to become tangible, a conversation has now started. This continues until there are no more unanswered questions.