Alexander Vella
A Avignon,
Dominique Pelicot has been on trial since September 2 for having raped and delivered his drugged ex-wife to dozens of men recruited on the Internet. The septuagenarian has become an icon of the feminist cause since her decision to refuse the closed session on the first day of this extraordinary trial. And since then, in Avignon, the debates have largely spilled over from the courtroom of the Vaucluse criminal court.
For almost three months, the walls and ramparts of the City of the Popes have seen posters, banners and collages popping up to the rescue of Gisèle Pelicot… and to all women victims of violence.
On these walls, therefore, messages demanding the firmness of the court or collages exposing the words of some of the accused. Among them, the “twenty years for each” led a defense lawyer this Wednesday to raise the question of undermining the presumption of innocence. He requested its removal and threatened legal action against those who made the collage.
Appearing at the time of the first requisitions, this banner, visible from the square in front of the Avignon courthouse, provoked the anger of a defense lawyer who considered that it violated the presumption of innocence.
On the walls of the city, some words of the accused were posted. They become loose over time or are sometimes torn off. Here, “I raped reluctantly”
On a cabinet protecting a lock system integrated into the ramparts of Avignon, texts, written by men and women, entitled “words for Gisèle” were slipped into transparent pockets.
“It’s an involuntary rape”, a sentence uttered by one of the accused during his hearing, was partially torn out.
“Gisèle, the women thank you. » This collage appears on a wall visible as soon as you cross the boulevard separating the Avignon courthouse from the ramparts of the old town.
“It’s rape but I didn’t rape”… This sentence, plastered in one of the streets of the old town, aims to show the problematic understanding of some of the accused of the acts with which they are accused.
On the pole of a lamppost located at the entrance to the court, a homemade sticker: “Fifty-one rapists. We want maximum sentences for everyone. »
The fight for freedom of expression and freedom of speech around sexual violence also takes place on the walls. On this one, that of the court grounds, a message was torn off.
“Welcome to our sisters in support of Gisèle”, it is written here in Catalan and Spanish.
Without doubt, the two most repeated messages on the walls of the city of Avignon while after having requested sentences of four to twenty years in prison against the 51 accused in the Mazan rape trial, the prosecution “looking to the future” on Wednesday November 27, 2024, hoping that the verdict expected in December will be “a message of hope to victims of sexual violence”.
In this street, we can read a sentence pronounced by Gisèle Pelicot: “since I arrived in this courtroom, I have felt humiliated”.
Here is a collage that appeared from the first days of the trial in an alley in the old town, shortly after Gisèle Pelicot refused to go behind closed doors: “she was said to be broken, Gisèle is a fighter. »
