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Gisèle Pelicot, who survived nearly a ten years of sexual assaults by scores of men after being incapacitated by her ex-husband, is set to appear court in France once more this Monday. This comes after one of the men found guilty of raping her launched an appeal, leading to a new hearing.

Pelicot emerged as a feminist icon after opting to forgo her anonymity during the legal proceedings involving her ex-husband and 50 other men. Her lawyer, Antoine Camus, explained that while she would have preferred the ordeal of another trial, she will be present throughout the multi-day appeal at the Nîmes court in the south of France.

“She will be there to make clear that a rape is a rape, that there is no concept as a minor assault,” Camus informed the press.

Husamettin Dogan, a 44-year-old builder given to nine years in prison for assaulting Pelicot, has appealed his conviction. The initial trial revealed that Dogan contacted her then-husband through a chatroom and drove to their home the same night in June 2019, telling his own wife he was going out. He was found guilty of raping Gisèle Pelicot while she was incapacitated.

Dogan claimed during the first trial that he believed it was a form of role-play. “I am not a criminal, that’s too difficult for me to bear,” he said. His legal representative refused to comment before the appeal.

Initially, 17 of the 51 convicted men signaled they would appeal, but 16 withdrew over time, leaving only one appeal proceeding.

Dominique Pelicot, considered one of the worst sex offenders in recent French memory, was handed 20 years in prison for administering drugs to his then-wife and arranging for numerous men to rape her at their home in southern France over nearly a decade of marriage.

Testimony in last year’s trial revealed that Dominique Pelicot had mixed sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication into his wife’s mashed potato or drinks, then invited men to assault her in the village of Mazan in the French countryside. A total of 50 other men were convicted in the case.

Now serving a prison sentence in isolation, Dominique Pelicot is scheduled to appear as a witness at the appeal. He is expected to restate his earlier testimony: “I admit to being a perpetrator and all the charged men in this room are rapists.”

Gisèle Pelicot, a 72-year-old former logistics manager, had demanded that the first trial be held publicly to raise awareness about drug-induced rape. “It’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them,” she stated in court.

The case generated a significant impact worldwide, with feminist organizations across the world supporting Gisèle Pelicot and international figures releasing statements in her support.

However, campaigners and attorneys noted that the case exposed how widespread and frequent rape and sexual violence remains.

In a separate case, a 46-year-old man in Normandy was given 12 years in prison for raping his partner while she was asleep on multiple instances in 2022. Similar to Dominique Pelicot, he first came to police attention for recording up a woman’s skirt in a supermarket, and investigators later discovered videos of the assaults on his digital equipment.

The appeal in the Pelicot case takes place amid growing criticism of the French justice system’s handling of rape. Several critical reports since the first trial have shown that the system continues to fail rape complainants on a significant level.

This year, the European Court of Human Rights condemned France for “not safeguarding” the rights of three teenagers who reported rape.

One teenager who accused more than a dozen firefighters of abuse was found to have suffered “re-traumatization and discriminatory treatment” by the French justice system, which did not act to protect her dignity “by allowing the use of moralising and guilt-inducing statements, which reinforced gender stereotypes.”

In another instance, France was found to have breached the European Convention on Human Rights in the case of a hospital pharmacist who filed a rape complaint against her supervisor.

This month, the High Council for Equality, an advisory body associated with the French prime minister’s office, reported that despite a threefold increase in rape complaints in France since the global #MeToo movement in 2016, the number of cases reaching court remains alarmingly small, with only 3.3% of complaints leading to convictions.

More than 130 feminist groups are campaigning for sweeping reform at every level of the French justice system in dealing with rape, calling for major funding increases and improved government assistance and prevention.

“This legal battle was a form of electric shock, it allowed a lot of people to talk about rape and marital rape. However, there has not really been a political response. There is a great deal lacking in France, and major flaws [in the justice system],” said Anne-Cécile Mailfert of the Fondation des Femmes.

Separately, parliament is currently debating incorporating a consent-based definition of rape into French law.

Marie-Charlotte Garin, a Green MP who backs rewording the law, stated that the Pelicot case had transformed French society’s understanding of consent and that updating the legal wording would help “a cultural change to move from a tolerance of assault to a culture of consent.”

However, Garin emphasized that wording alone is insufficient to address persistent “shortcomings” of the entire French state toward rape survivors. “We need a overhaul in the system to improve how we deal with rape,” she said.