Overview

• The four-day retrial of Husamettin Dogan begins on 6 October at the Nîmes court of appeal after he contested his nine-year sentence for raping Pelicot while she was unconscious.
• Gisèle Pelicot, 72, will attend and give evidence voluntarily despite not being required to, her lawyer Antoine Camus said.
• Dominique Pelicot, serving a 20-year sentence and held in solitary confinement, is expected to testify as a witness at the appeal.
• Seventeen of the roughly 51 men convicted initially signaled appeals, but 16 withdrew, leaving Dogan as the only appellant.
• The 2024 Avignon trial documented years of drugging and assaults by dozens of men and has intensified scrutiny of France’s response to rape, with ECHR condemnations, a reported 3.3% conviction rate, and a parliamentary push to adopt a consent-based legal definition.