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00:00Lawyers are making their final submissions for the 50 men co-accused of the mass rape
00:04of a woman who was unconscious and drugged by her husband.
00:08The trial of Dominique Pulico, who has admitted his guilt, and the men he recruited online
00:14to rape and abuse his own wife, is nearing its legal climax.
00:17The prosecution has called for jail time of 4 to 18 years for the men of all walks of
00:22life who are aged from 26 to 74.
00:25The victim of these horrific attacks, Giselle Pulico, there she is, has waived her right
00:31to anonymity in order to highlight the horrors of the case and put on the front page the
00:37plight of women who suffer violence.
00:39Karis Garlands in Avignon for France 24.
00:43Among them fathers, husbands, a firefighter, a gardener and a nurse, we are now hearing
00:48the closing arguments of the lawyers of these 49 co-accused of Dominique Pulico, with one
00:54more being tried in absentia.
00:56Most of these men have been charged with aggravated rape against Giselle Pulico, the main defendant's
01:02ex-wife, and while many of them say no, she did not consent, many still deny the intention
01:09of raping her.
01:11So what then is their main line of defence?
01:14One of these lawyers this Thursday said that her client had been manipulated by Dominique
01:20Pulico, saying that yes, Giselle Pulico was a victim, but only of her then-husband and
01:27him alone.
01:28She added that her client never would have gone to the Pulico household had he known
01:33that Giselle had been drugged.
01:35This feeling of being manipulated has been echoed among several defendants.
01:40We spoke to one of them who said that he felt like he had been duped.
01:44He said that he was purely motivated by having sexual relations with Dominique Pulico, though
01:50he did admit to facilitating the rape of Giselle Pulico by her then-husband.
01:56He said it's difficult to admit that I am a rapist, and he said I am wrong to have not
02:02have alerted the authorities.
02:04He said that he felt a deep loneliness and fear.
02:07Prosecutors want him, for example, to go to jail for 10 years, and many defence lawyers
02:12are saying that these sentences would be disproportionate, especially in comparison to that of Dominique
02:18Pulico, who prosecutors want to see go to jail for 20 years, the maximum penalty.
02:24That was Karis Garland, our reporter at the trial, which of course is nearing its closing
02:29phases now with the verdicts set to be announced, the defence wrapping up as the days go by.
02:38Let's bring in Camille Lextre from Solidarité Femme here in Paris for more on the case,
02:44but also on the issue which is central to the case about drugging somebody and then
02:49having sexual relations, raping them.
02:53It is a shocking case on so many levels, this, isn't it?
02:56On a wider scale, do you think it will change attitudes among the authorities into how they
03:02deal with such cases, someone who's been drugged and raped?
03:06Well, yes, I think like the mentalities have been deeply shocked in France to discover
03:13that ordinary men can do such things.
03:17We, the associations, the NGOs that work against women's violence, we know that for years and
03:24we've been telling that for years.
03:26So there's been a change, of course, but if we are looking at the politics, there is no
03:35really support of Gisèle Pulico.
03:38No political people have made speeches to support Gisèle Pulico.
03:44So we need to have more than just little policies.
03:51And we have to have a society that really supports the victims and go behind them to
03:57make their trial easier and to assure them that the society is behind them and is not
04:06just looking at them.
04:08Camille, there is a long-standing misogyny at the centre of sexual violence cases.
04:16And it's been, it's horrible to say, but, you know, there are some people in justice
04:21circles, men, who say women did something to provoke it.
04:25Now, that argument doesn't hold water at all.
04:28You don't provoke those kinds of things.
04:29And certainly in Gisèle Pulico's case, it's not possible.
04:32You're unconscious.
04:33You've been drugged.
04:34It's not possible to provoke anything.
04:36Do you feel that the government, in the changes it's trying to make, is at least beginning
04:40to take things seriously?
04:42Yeah, there is changes.
04:45And we can only say that they are good changes.
04:49There are measures that have been announced by the prime minister that go in the right
04:54direction.
04:55It's not new measures.
04:56It's measures that we have been asking for.
04:59But it's always great when there is new measures.
05:02And we can only say that it's going in a great way.
05:06But the society, the rape culture, is deeply rooted.
05:12And with Gisèle Pulico, we have the example of the victim we can only believe.
05:17But we have to believe all the victims.
05:20And not only the ones that have videos and that have proof and that are in the situation
05:25where nothing can be said about them.
05:28The perfect victim is a problem.
05:30The perfect victim does not need to exist in order to listen to the victim.
05:36You don't need to be perfect to be considered as a victim.
05:40And we see in the measures that we really need to take account of all the victims, even
05:47those that don't have videos or that don't have physical proof.
05:52But to really have all those realities in mind when we do policies.
05:57Indeed, you're right Camille, because whatever your social standing, whether you're a clean
06:02living person or whether you indulge in things that perhaps society says aren't clean living.
06:07Whether you are a sex worker, male, female, it doesn't matter.
06:10If you haven't given consent, then it's rape.
06:13That's basically the bottom line, isn't it?
06:14And that's how it should be.
06:16Yeah, absolutely.
06:18And so nowadays in our law in France, the consent is not included.
06:23So what we could hear during this trial was that basically since the ex-husband gave the
06:31consent for Gisèle Pellicot, it was enough.
06:35And we really need to have education and to have this concept of consent in the law so
06:43that we really highlight the fact that a woman does not belong to her husband.
06:51Her life, her body is her own and she is able to will or not to will.
06:59If she is not able to do that, then there's no consent.
07:02Then it's rape.
07:04It's as simple as that.
07:06What you do, what you're saying, Camille, makes perfect sense.
07:08I don't think anybody who disagrees with you, I think, needs to sort of take a long hard
07:12look at themselves and ask themselves why.
07:14Can I ask you, Camille, because we're coming towards the end of this interview.
07:18Drugs like Rohypnol slipped into drinks in order to make somebody drowsy, knock them
07:22out and then abuse them.
07:24Those kind of things, the availability of drugs like that.
07:27This is all part of the problem, isn't it?
07:30Well, when we look at numbers, yeah, when we look at numbers, first of all, chemical
07:37subject submission is just one of many weapons.
07:42We see that it's basically drugs that you can buy at a pharmacy that is mainly used
07:48in the chemical subject submission.
07:51There is this problem, but the main issue is education.
07:55On the one hand, you have this huge subject about this trial and everybody is talking
08:00about that.
08:01But on the other hand, in France right now, there is a moral panic about education, about
08:08affection, relation and sexual life for children.
08:14And there is a huge fight against this education.
08:17So the roots is really the education, how you educate people basically to have a healthy,
08:24a nonviolent, respectful life and interactions, sexual interactions.
08:30And that's the huge subject, how prior to those violences, you act against those
08:38misogynist roots and how you manage to create a society where those ordinary men cannot
08:47rape anymore.
08:49Your message go far and wide, Camille L'Extrait from Solidarity Farm.
08:53Completely agree with you.
08:54I'm supposed.