doGisèle Pelicot here,
We never stop thinking about these ten years of horror that you lived through, without your knowledge, because it seems so unreal. Unreal and chilling, unreal and terrifying, unreal and terrible. From the unspeakable to the light of a process that you wanted to be public and publicized, your courage is immense.
You wanted your fight for shame to change sides to be public, you wanted to show it to all of France and beyond. This trial is a fight for all women, for all our girls, who are victims of violence, aggression, rape, to cleanse their honor, to rehabilitate all our sisters.
We have heard your conviction. Filing a complaint after rape is an additional ordeal imposed on women, and very few take the risk. Your determination makes you strong, strong not to let yourself be shaken by the grotesque excuses presented by the defense.
You are worthy, with your head held high.
You are heroic, the elaborate word, to express your anger, your rage for justice. A healthy anger to get rid of this excess of disgust, an anger that we express with you, throughout France.
Shout that in 2024 it is inconceivable that men can still have the only representation of women as a possession, a sexual object, which can be destroyed to dispose of and enjoy.
Since September 2, all of France has been living in harmony with the trial of fifty-one men, their attackers, as normal as it can be described as normal. However, there are still too many voices missing to protest the magnitude of the violence you have suffered.
We, the parliamentarians of the Group of Socialists and Allies in the National Assembly, of the group of Socialists, Ecologists and Republicans in the Senate, and of the group of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, will not let our guard down and reaffirm:
- that masculinity does not give the right to dominate, possess and exploit women;
- that women’s bodies belong only to them and that no one can take them away from them;
- that women are free, free to dress as they want, free to live their lives as they want, free to say yes or no;
- that rape is rape;
- that nothing, absolutely nothing, can hold them responsible for sexual assault or rape;
- that we must move away from the myth of “conjugal duty”;
- that rape is an attack on physical and psychological integrity, nothing can justify such an act;
- that the words of the victims are inaudible, that it is urgent that they be heard, supported, believed and brought to justice.
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