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Gisèle Pelicot, who endured nearly a ten years of rapes by dozens of men after being incapacitated by her former spouse, is expected to attend court in France once more this Monday. This follows one of the men convicted of raping her filed an appeal, triggering a second trial.

Pelicot became a feminist icon after opting to waive her anonymity during the legal proceedings involving her ex-husband and numerous defendants. Her attorney, Antoine Camus, explained that while she would have preferred the stress of another trial, she will be present throughout the four-day appeal at the Nîmes court in southern 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 builder sentenced to nine years in prison for assaulting Pelicot, has challenged his conviction. The initial trial established that Dogan contacted her then-husband through a online forum and traveled to their home the same night in June 2019, informing his own wife he was leaving. He was found guilty of raping Gisèle Pelicot while she was incapacitated.

Dogan asserted during the first trial that he believed it was a form of role-play. “I am not a criminal, that’s too heavy for me to accept,” 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, considered one of the worst sex offenders in recent French memory, was handed 20 years in prison for administering drugs to his then-wife and inviting numerous men to rape her at their home in southern France over many years of marriage.

Testimony in last year’s trial disclosed that Dominique Pelicot had mixed sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication into his wife’s food or drinks, then invited men to assault her in the village 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 likely to repeat his previous testimony: “I am a rapist 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 effect globally, with feminist organizations across the world backing Gisèle Pelicot and international figures releasing statements in her support.

However, campaigners and lawyers noted that the case exposed how widespread and frequent rape and sexual violence continues to be.

In a separate case, a 46-year-old man in Normandy was sentenced 12 years in prison for raping his partner while she was asleep on several occasions in 2022. Similar to Dominique Pelicot, he first came to police attention for recording 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 occurs 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 fail rape victims on a large scale.

This year, the European Court of Human Rights condemned France for “not safeguarding” the rights of three teenagers who disclosed rape.

One teenager who accused more than a dozen firefighters of abuse was found to have suffered “secondary victimisation and discriminatory treatment” by the French justice system, which failed to protect her dignity “by allowing the use of judgmental and guilt-inducing statements, which propagated 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, reported 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 leading to convictions.

More than 130 feminist groups are campaigning for comprehensive changes at every level of the French justice system in addressing rape, calling for major funding increases and improved state support and prevention.

“This legal battle was a kind of electric shock, it enabled a lot of people to talk about rape and spousal assault. However, there has not really been a political response. There is a great deal lacking in France, and major flaws [in the justice system],” said Anne-Cécile Mailfert of the Fondation des Femmes.

Separately, parliament is currently debating incorporating a consent-based definition of rape into French law.

Marie-Charlotte Garin, a Green MP who backs rewording the law, stated that the Pelicot case had transformed French society’s understanding of consent and that updating the legal wording would help “a cultural change to move from a culture of rape to a respect for autonomy.”

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