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Almost a year after the gang rape trial that captured the world’s attention and galvanized the feminist movement in France, Gisele Pericot is poised to return to the public eye with the release of her deeply vulnerable memoir.
In “Anthem to Life: Shame Must Turn,” 73-year-old Gisele Pericot describes her years-long ordeal in seeking justice in French courts after discovering that her then-husband Dominique Pericotte had repeatedly drugged her and raped her by bringing dozens of strangers into their home.
The deliberate and violent nature of the crime and the range of perpetrators involved shocked the country in 2021 when the case first became public in the wake of France’s #MeToo movement, #BalanceTonPorc (loosely translated as “Expose the pig”), and amid a reckoning over attitudes towards incest and child abuse. Gisele Perico’s decision to open her trial to the public in 2024, rather than remaining anonymous as allowed in sexual abuse cases under French law, has brought attention to Gisele, now a 73-year-old retiree, and turned her into a global feminist icon.
She details this journey in a nearly 250-page book, including her harrowing discovery of her ex-husband’s years of deception and abuse. It was written in parallel with Ghostwriter Translated into English by Judith Perignon, Natasha Lehrer and Ruth Diver and published by Penguin Press. The book will be on shelves on Tuesday, February 17th. The book’s subtitle, “Shame Must Change Sides,” was a slogan used by many of Gisele Perico’s supporters and during demonstrations before and after the trial, arguing for changes in how the justice system defines sexual violence and sexual consent. This was also a cry for Gisele Perico, who remembered these words when she decided to open the trial to the public.
“Everyone needs to see the faces of 51 rapists,” she wrote. “They are the ones who should hang their heads in shame, not me.”
A “kind and attentive” husband
Gisele Perico’s story begins in 2020 with a phone call from local police. This phone call would change her life and that of her family forever. Her husband, Dominique Pericotte, now 73, had been arrested for photographing a woman upskirt at a grocery store. When investigators seized his computers, phones and other devices, they discovered about 300 photos and videos documenting Gisele Perico’s abuse at the hands of dozens of men.
She did not hesitate to share the brutal details of what her assailants had done to her mentally and physically. Or, she did not hesitate to talk about the years of internal struggle she endured trying to understand how her life partner of 50 years had been subjected to such unspeakable betrayal and sexual violence. In that sense, much of the book reads less like a memoir and more like a psychological horror story in which her impressions of a life and marriage, which she had thought were “quiet” and “happy” for years, are painfully suddenly unraveled.
During her first interview with police in 2020, an official asked her to describe her husband’s personality.
“He’s kind and attentive,” she recalls saying. “He’s a nice guy. That’s why we’re still together.”
Gisele Perico admits in her book that she plans to spend the rest of her life “confused” over memories of her life with her ex-husband and abuser, and hopes to “recover some good memories.” But she writes that she refuses to be overwhelmed by hatred or to be seen as a victim.
Her interrogations are often deeply introspective. The book is interspersed with chapters that tell of her childhood and family tragedies: how she met Dominique, her financial struggles and troubled marriage, and her career working for a French electricity company.
It’s all told from the perspective of a woman trying to make sense of her life in the face of devastation, grasping for signs that can sometimes only be found in hindsight. The beer turned green – possibly due to a chemical reaction with the drugs Dominque Perico had slipped into her drinks and food to render her unconscious during the rape. My new pants have stains on them for an unknown reason. Most worryingly, after years of severe health problems and memory loss, she was convinced she would die from a brain tumor like her mother.
The men who raped her, ranging in age from 26 to 74, became known as “Mr. Everyman” during the trial. One was a firefighter, another was a soldier, and the third was a nurse. Some had spouses and families. The trial of Dominic Perico and others concluded in December 2024, with all 51 defendants found guilty. Although Dominic Perico himself confessed to his crimes, many other convicted rapists denied their actions even in the face of video evidence.
Gisele Perico wrote about this experience: When the video of her rape was played in court, she said she took solace in looking at photos on her phone of her grandchildren, the ocean and the landscape around the house she once shared with her husband in Provence. And during breaks in the proceedings, a group of defendants talked loudly, high-fived, and mingled over beers at a cafe across the street, all “confident they had done nothing wrong,” she wrote.
From a “quiet” life to a global feminist symbol
Pericot was an unexpected feminist hero, who, by her own account, was aware of the feminist movement that developed in her life but considered herself “excluded” from it. She now embraces her newfound mantle as a symbol of the current feminist wave.
“And in my 70s, I am a martyr, a symbol of a new wave of feminists about which I know almost nothing,” she writes. “I won’t run away this time.”
Pericot also spends much of her time writing about the effects of her ex-husband’s abuse on her family, particularly the couple’s three adult children who are grappling with the revelation of their father’s crimes and the effects of his abuse on their mother. His relationship with his daughter, Caroline Darian, was particularly strained, as she felt her mother was not supportive enough of her concerns that she was being abused by her father. Among the large amount of materials seized by the police during the investigation, it was discovered that Dominic Perico took photos of his daughter while she was sleeping and secretly filmed herself naked.
But despite all the monsters revealed in Pericot’s story, her unwavering courage and optimism that she will endure serve as a buoyancy, drawing readers back with a sense of hope for her own future when her retellings of her abusers’ atrocities become too much to bear time and time again. She also tells how she found love again in the run-up to her trial, and how it helped her rediscover her joie de vivre (the book’s title in its original French).
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence, RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline provides free, confidential, 24/7 support in English and Spanish to survivors and their loved ones: 800.656.HOPE (4673) Hotline.RAINN.org and in spanish RAINN.org/es.
Kathryn Palmer is USA TODAY’s political reporter. She can be reached at the following address: kapalmer@usatoday.com And to X@Kathryn Purml. Sign up for her daily politics newsletter here.
