French mass rape victim tells court she is 'broken' but determined

Gisele Pelicot insisted from the start that the trial should be open to the public to draw attention to the use of drugs to commit sexual abuse.

And she has encouraged other women who have been sexually assaulted to come forward.

"I wanted all women who are rape victims to say to themselves: 'Mrs Pelicot did it, so we can do it too'," she said.

"It's not us who should feel shame, but them (the perpetrators)", she said.

Gisele Pelicot addressed the court on Wednesday at the invitation of presiding judge Roger Arata, who asked for her "impressions" of the trial so far.

"I don't know how I'm going to rebuild myself," she said. "I'm 72 soon and I'm not sure my life will be long enough to recover from this."

'Immeasurable betrayal'

She then addressed her former husband who was sitting in the dock without looking at her, asking him to explain what made him drug her over almost a decade, rape her and enlist strangers to do the same.

"I'm trying to understand how my husband, who was the perfect man, became like this. How my life changed. How you could allow these people into our house knowing that I disliked swinging.

"For me, this betrayal is immeasurable. After 50 years together... I used to think I was going to be with this man until the end."

She added, looking steadily at her husband, who looked away: "I always tried to lift you higher. You plumbed the depths of the human soul, but unfortunately you made your own choices."

Her ex-husband, also 71, remained seated without any apparent reaction bar lowering his eyes.

His six other co-defendants whose cases are being studied by the court this week likewise stayed silent, surrounded by their counsels.

Gisele Pelicot, who was greeted with applause by the audience as she arrived Wednesday, has attended the trial most days.

In mid-September, she dropped her usual reserve to talk of her humiliation and her anger towards several lawyers who had made insinuations about her ordeal.

"A rape is a rape," she said.

Abuse on film