Woman who was sedated and raped by her then husband says she is driven by ‘determination to change society’

• Who are the men accused in Pelicot case?

Gisèle Pelicot, the French woman who has become a feminist hero for insisting that the rape trial of her ex-husband and 50 other men should be held in public, has told a court in southern France she was driven by her desire to change society and expose rape culture.

“I am a woman who is totally destroyed, and don’t know how I can pick myself up from this,” said the 72-year-old former logistics manager, who was repeatedly unknowingly sedated and raped by her then husband, Dominique Pelicot, 71.