French woman to testify about decades of drug trauma

However, she insisted that the trial should be held in public so that all the facts of the case could come to light.

She will face “extremely difficult moments” while she testifies, said Stephane Babonneau, one of Gisele P.'s two lawyers.

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The first signs of a defense strategy emerged on Wednesday when some lawyers asked investigators whether Gisele P. and her husband had had a permissive relationship or whether it was credible that she had not noticed anything during the entire ten years of abuse.

The manner of questioning seemed to anger the plaintiff, who was listening attentively, but she remained even as her three children left the courtroom in disgust.

“Of course she was offended,” said Antoine Camus, her second lawyer.

“She wanted to answer. We felt her bobbing up and down behind us, saying, 'I want to answer, I just have to answer,' and we told her, 'Morning!'”

Gisele P.'s husband, Dominique, is accused of abusing his wife between 2011 and 2020, giving her sleeping pills and then hiring dozens of strangers to rape her, lead investigator Jeremie Bosse Platiere said in court on Wednesday.

Dominique P. was exposed by chance when he was caught looking under women's skirts in a supermarket.

When asked on Tuesday whether he considered himself guilty of the charges against him, he answered “yes.”

The 71-year-old pensioner documented his crimes with meticulous detail on a hard drive in a folder labeled “abuse.” This enabled French police to track down more than 50 men suspected of raping her while under the influence of drugs.

A third were identified using facial recognition software, said Bosse Platiere.

The interdepartmental police chief of the Hautes-Alpes region said he had hand-picked people “who had the courage to confront” videos and images of abuse by reviewing documents such as telephone bills.

The police created a list of 72 people suspected of abusing Gisele P.

Investigators counted around 200 rapes, most of them by Dominique P., and over 90 by strangers who had registered via an adult website.

The attacks occurred between July 2011 and October 2020, mainly in the couple's home in Mazan, a village of 6,000 inhabitants in southern Provence.

Most suspects face up to 20 years in prison for aggravated rape if convicted.

18 of the 51 defendants, including Dominique P., are in custody, 32 other defendants appear at the trial as free men.

The last defendant who is still at large will be tried in absentia.

The trial is expected to last four months until December 20 – “an absolutely terrible ordeal” for Gisele P., said Camus.

“For the first time, she will experience the rapes she was subjected to for ten years” and of which she has “no memory,” he told AFP.