Tall stacks of books stand on the parquet floor and desks of this office in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, with black-and-white author portraits hanging on the walls. As of this month, Gisèle Pelicot, 73, is among them. In just a few days her first book* will be published. In fall 2024, Pelicot became famous worldwide because she insisted that the trial against her rapists be made public. She wanted everyone to be able to see and hear what had happened to her.

For nearly a decade, her husband had regularly sedated her and then had complete strangers rape her in their own bedroom – strangers he found through an ad ("Seeking accomplices to rape my drugged wife") in an internet forum that has since been shut down. Most of them came from within a 50-kilometer radius of Mazan, the town in southern France where the couple lived. Her husband, Dominique Pelicot, filmed each of the rapes, both to document the assaults and because it aroused him. As a result, unlike in typical rape cases, the evidence against the defendants was overwhelming. Most of them nevertheless denied their actions, declaring in court that they were not rapists. In the end, all of them were sentenced to prison terms of between three and 20 years, only two of which were suspended.

Dominique Pelicot's crimes were only uncovered because the security guard at a supermarket in Carpentras in southern France called the police after he discovered Dominique Pelicot filming up women’s skirts with his cell phone in fall 2020. Gisèle Pelicot later thanked the man.

DER SPIEGEL: Madame Pelicot, the trial in Avignon began more than a year ago, and the appeals trial has been over since October, 2025. How are you doing today?

Pelicot: Better. This story forced me to take stock of my life. I tried to rise up from this field of ruins. The hardest time is behind me. I now allow myself to be happy again.

DER SPIEGEL: And – are you?

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Pelicot: I can experience happy moments again. Which is also because there's a new man in my life. I never could have imagined falling in love again. I thought I would spend the rest of my life alone, with my friends and my children. I liked the idea. But then, chance brought me together with Jean-Loup, who has also experienced much suffering. There is an important message behind all this: There is a way out of the darkness. That's something else I hope to communicate with my book.