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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 filed an appeal, leading to a second trial.

Pelicot emerged as a feminist icon after opting to waive her anonymity during the 2024 trial involving her ex-husband and 50 other men. Her lawyer, Antoine Camus, stated that while she would have preferred the stress of another trial, she will be present throughout the multi-day appeal at the Nîmes court in the south of France.

“Her presence is essential to explain that a rape is a rape, that there is no concept as a small rape,” Camus informed reporters.

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

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

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

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 inviting multiple men to rape her at their home in southern France over many years of marriage.

Testimony in last year’s trial revealed that Dominique Pelicot had crushed sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication into his wife’s mashed potato or drinks, then brought in men to assault her in the town of Mazan in the French countryside. A total of 50 other men were convicted in the case.

Now serving a prison sentence in isolation, Dominique Pelicot is scheduled to appear as a witness at the appeal. He is expected to restate his previous testimony: “I admit to being a perpetrator and all the accused men in this room are rapists.”

Gisèle Pelicot, a 72-year-old former supply chain professional, had insisted that the initial trial be held publicly to educate the public about drug-induced rape. “We should not feel ashamed, it’s for them,” she stated in court.

The case had a significant impact worldwide, with feminist organizations across the world backing Gisèle Pelicot and world leaders releasing statements in her support.

However, activists and lawyers noted that the case highlighted how widespread and frequent rape and sexual violence remains.

In a separate 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 shown that the system continues to disappoint rape victims on a large scale.

This year, the European Court of Human Rights censured France for “failing to protect” the rights of three teenagers who disclosed rape.

One teenager who accused several firefighters of abuse was found to have suffered “re-traumatization and discriminatory treatment” by the French justice system, which did not act to protect her dignity “by permitting the use of moralising 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, found that despite a threefold increase in rape complaints in France since the global #MeToo movement in 2016, the number of cases proceeding to trial remains dangerously low, with only 3.3% of complaints resulting in convictions.

More than 130 feminist groups are campaigning for sweeping reform at every level of the French justice system in addressing rape, calling for major funding increases and improved government assistance and prevention.

“The Pelicot case was a kind of electric shock, it allowed 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 missing in France, and serious dysfunction [in the justice system],” said Anne-Cécile Mailfert of the Fondation des Femmes.

Separately, parliament is currently considering 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 altered French society’s understanding of consent and that changing the legal wording would help “a societal shift to move from a culture of rape to a culture of consent.”

However, Garin emphasized that wording alone is insufficient to address persistent “failures” of the entire French state toward rape survivors. “It requires a overhaul in the system to improve how we handle rape,” she said.