The Pelicot Trial Exposes France’s Jury Problem
Last year’s Pelicot trial was the biggest rape case in French history, drawing huge public attention. But only an appeal last week saw the case heard before a jury, allowing ordinary citizens to pass judgement on the rapists.
When Gisèle Pelicot returned to court for the appeal of one of her rapists, the absurdity of the defense’s strategy of denial met the unfiltered reaction of ordinary people in the jury. (Arnold Jerocki / Getty Images)
“When I opened the doors to this trial on 2 September,” Gisèle Pelicot said on the final day of France’s mass-rape trial in Avignon last year, “I wanted society to be able to take part in this debate. I have never regretted that decision.”
At the time, her words sounded almost like an act of faith: a woman brutalized by her husband and fifty strangers still hoped that justice could be a collective act. And yet while the case drew massive attention, much of this hope was taken from her.
Despite her wish for the public to “take part in the debate,” in Avignon wider society was locked out. Because of a 2023 reform, her case — the largest rape trial in modern French history — was not heard by a circuit court, where a peer jury sits beside magistrates, but by a newfangled departmental criminal court, made up entirely of five professional judges.
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