A judge in France on Thursday found the ex-husband of Gisèle Pelicot, who admitted that he drugged and raped her repeatedly over nearly a decade and invited dozens of other men to attack her as well, is guilty of aggravated rape. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

During the trial, Pelicot – who insisted that her full name be published proceedings be public — was praised for her courage and became a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France and around the world.

A judge at a court in Avignon, southeastern France, read the verdicts for 49 other men who were also accused of raping Pelicot, at the invitation of her husband, and another accused of aggravated sexual assault.

When Pelicot arrived in court on Thursday, she was met by a crowd of people holding banners that read: “Thank you for your courage.” She and her daughters sat in the courtroom as the verdicts were read, their heads against the wall, CBS News partner BBC News reported.

The trial began on September 2, and Pelicot faced her almost every day ex-husbandDominique or one of the 50 other men accused of attacking her. She insisted that videos he submitted as evidence, made by her ex-husband, showing her being attacked by men while she appeared to be unconscious, be shown in court.

Dominique Pelicot was also found guilty of attempted aggravated rape of a woman named Cillia, the wife of another man, Jean Pierre Marechal, who was one of the co-accused, as well as taking indecent images of his daughter Caroline and his daughters-in-law, Celine and Aurora, the BBC reported. News. As he sat in court, he showed no emotion as the verdicts were read, according to the BBC.

The attacks took place between 2011 and 2020, when Dominique Pelicot was detained. Police found thousands of photos and videos of the abuse on his computer drives, which helped lead them to other suspects. Some of the men told the court they believed the unconscious woman was okay with it or that her husband’s permission was enough.

“Gisèle Pelicot believes that this shock is necessary so that no one can say after this, ‘I didn’t know this was rape,'” her lawyer Stéphane Babonneau told The Associated Press.

“It’s not for us to be ashamed – it’s for them,” Pelicot said during the trial, referring to the attackers. Above all, I express my will and determination to change this society.

Controversial French laws

Pelicot’s case sparked protests across France, and there was hope among some protesters that the case could lead to changes in France’s controversial laws governing sexual consent.

France introduced the legal age of consent for sexual relations in 2021 after a public outcry over the rape of an 11-year-old schoolgirl by a man who was initially given a lighter sentence. Since then, sex with a person under the age of 15 has been considered involuntary, but French law does not mention consent in cases involving older victims.

According to French law, rape is defined as penetration or oral sex using “violence, coercion, threat or surprise”, regardless of consent, according to the Reuters news agency. Prosecutors must therefore prove intent to rape if they want to be successful in court, legal experts told Reuters.

According to a study by the Institute for Public Policy, only 14% of rape allegations in France lead to official investigations.

“Why are we failing to get convictions? The first reason is the law,” legal expert Catherine Le Magueresse told Reuters. “The law is written in such a way that victims have to conform to the stereotype of a ‘good victim’ and a ‘real rape’: an unknown assailant, the use of violence and the victim’s resistance. But this only applies to a minority of rapes.”

“I’m trying to understand”

Speaking in court during the trial, Pelicot, who is 72, spoke of how she thought she was in a loving marriage with her husband and would never have guessed he was drugging her.

“We would have a glass of white wine together. There was never anything strange about my potatoes,” Pelicot told the court.

“We finished eating. Often when there was a football game on TV, I let him watch it alone. He brought me an ice cream in bed, where I was. My favorite flavor — raspberry — and I thought, ‘How lucky I am he is love.”

She said she had no sense of being drugged.

“I never felt my heart beat. I didn’t feel anything. I must have fallen very quickly. I would wake up in my pyjamas,” Pelicot told the court, adding that sometimes she would wake up “more tired than usual, but I walk a lot and I thought that’s it.”

“I’m trying to understand,” she said, “how this husband, who was a perfect man, could have come to this.”