Gisèle Pelicot raises her sunglasses and decides to defend herself

Mr. Babonneau knew that without these videos “there would most likely have been no trial and no case.”

Ms Pelicot understood this too, but could easily and understandably have decided not to watch the footage herself for health reasons.

Instead, Mr. Babonneau recalls, one day she simply announced, “I’m ready now.”

So she sat next to the two men in their office as they presented a carefully selected portion of each video, explaining who the men were and what they would do to her. Then Mr. Babonneau pressed play and images of the Pelicots’ bedroom in their bungalow in the village of Mazan appeared on the screen.

Gisèle remained silent and watched carefully.

“How could he?” she finally asked in her calm voice. It was a sentence she would repeat again and again in the days to come.

Then a little later she wrote down the date on one of the videos.

“That was my birthday night.”

“This happened in my daughter’s bed. At her beach house.”

Mr. Babonneau recalled Ms. Pelicot’s sustained indignation, but also noted that she never cried and that with the help of experts she was able to “create an impressive distance between what she saw and her sanity.”

The lawyers viewed this moment as a “final test” that showed their client had “some kind of balance” in the four years since November 4, 2020, when she was informed of her husband’s actions and “her world was shattered.” had regained.

She was now ready to face the rigors of a public trial.