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The French woman, who endured nearly a decade of rapes by scores of men after being drugged by her former spouse, is expected to attend court in France once more this Monday. This comes after one of the men found guilty of raping her launched an appeal, triggering a second trial.

Pelicot emerged as a symbol of women's rights after choosing to waive her anonymity during the 2024 trial involving her ex-husband and numerous defendants. Her attorney, Antoine Camus, stated that while she would have rather avoided the stress of another trial, she will be present throughout the four-day appeal at the Nîmes court in the south of France.

“She will be there to make clear that a rape is a rape, that there is no such thing as a small rape,” Camus told the press.

Husamettin Dogan, a 44-year-old builder sentenced to nine years in prison for assaulting Pelicot, has appealed his conviction. The first trial revealed that Dogan contacted her then-husband through a online forum and drove to their home the same night in June 2019, telling his own wife he was leaving. He was found guilty of raping Gisèle Pelicot while she was incapacitated.

Dogan claimed during the first trial that he believed it was just a game. “I’m not a rapist, that’s too difficult for me to accept,” he said. His legal representative declined to comment before the appeal.

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

Dominique Pelicot, described as one of the most notorious sex offenders in modern French history, was handed 20 years in prison for administering drugs to his then-wife and arranging for 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 mixed sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication into his wife’s mashed potato or drinks, then brought in men to assault her in the village of Mazan in south-east France. A total of 50 other men were found guilty in the case.

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

Gisèle Pelicot, a 72-year-old former supply chain professional, had demanded that the first trial be held publicly to raise awareness about assault under sedation. “It’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them,” she stated in court.

The case had a massive effect worldwide, with feminist organizations across all continents supporting Gisèle Pelicot and world leaders releasing statements in her support.

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

In a recent case, a 46-year-old man in Normandy was given 12 years in prison for raping his partner while she was unconscious on multiple instances 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 growing criticism of the French justice system’s treatment of rape. Several damning reports since the first trial have indicated that the system continues to disappoint rape victims on a significant level.

This year, the European Court of Human Rights censured 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 “secondary victimisation and discriminatory treatment” by the French justice system, which did not act to protect her dignity “by permitting the use of judgmental and guilt-inducing statements, which reinforced gender stereotypes.”

In another instance, France was found to have breached 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 dangerously low, with only 3.3% of complaints leading to convictions.

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

“This legal battle was a kind of electric shock, it enabled a lot of people to talk about rape and marital rape. However, there has not really been a government action. There is a great deal lacking in France, and major flaws [in the justice system],” said Anne-Cécile Mailfert of the Fondation des Femmes.

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

Marie-Charlotte Garin, a Green MP who supports 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 alone is insufficient to address persistent “failures” of the entire French state toward rape survivors. “We need a revolution in the system to improve how we deal with rape,” she said.