A poll in France has named Gisèle Pelicot as the country’s person of the year for the courage and dignity she displayed during the rape trial that transfixed the West in the autumn.
The Independent newspaper argued last week that the Frenchwoman deserves to be named the world’s Person of 2024 – not Donald Trump – and Prospect magazine agreed, saying Pelicot has ‘gifted others with hope for change’.
Gisèle Pelicot is certainly an inspirational woman, the word used by President Emmanuel Macron to describe her bravery in court as she sat through the three month trial that resulted in the imprisonment of her former husband and 51 men for rape and assault.
Over the course of ten years Dominique Pelicot had drugged his wife and then invited men he met online to violate her. The trial attracted journalists from around the world, including one from the New York Times who wrote that ‘Gisèle Pelicot’s image has become a symbol of female strength around the world’.
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