Gisèle Pelicot has described the moment she fell in love and was able to trust again after her rape ordeal orchestrated by her former husband in France.
Pelicot, 73, waived her right to anonymity during the trial of Dominique Pelicot, who was jailed for 20 years in 2024 for drugging and raping her and allowing other men to sexually assault her while she was unconscious, over almost a decade.
Speaking at the Hay festival in Wales on Saturday, she said she never thought she could trust a man again before meeting her partner, Jean-Loup Agopian.
The campaigner said: “It’s something that I didn’t think could happen, especially at my age, first of all, I didn’t really want to fall in love, but life decided otherwise.
“We met, our trajectories crossed at one moment and I met this young man of 73… You see, you can fall in love at any age, it happened to me, it can happen to you, I’m convinced of it.
