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Gisèle Pelicot, who survived nearly a decade of rapes by dozens of men after being drugged by her ex-husband, is set to appear court in France once more this Monday. This follows one of the men convicted of raping her launched an appeal, leading to a second trial.

Pelicot emerged as a feminist icon after opting to forgo her right to privacy during the legal proceedings involving her ex-husband and numerous defendants. Her lawyer, Antoine Camus, stated that while she would have preferred the ordeal of another trial, she will be in attendance throughout the four-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 told the press.

Husamettin Dogan, a 44-year-old construction worker given to nine years in prison for assaulting Pelicot, has challenged his conviction. The initial trial established that Dogan contacted her then-husband through a chatroom and traveled 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 unconscious.

Dogan asserted during the first trial that he believed it was just a game. “I’m not a rapist, that’s too heavy for me to accept,” he said. His legal representative declined to comment before the appeal.

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

Dominique Pelicot, considered one of the most notorious sex offenders in recent French memory, was sentenced 20 years in prison for drugging his then-wife and arranging for multiple men to rape her at their home in southern France over many years of marriage.

Testimony in last year’s trial disclosed that Dominique Pelicot had crushed sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication into his wife’s food or drinks, then invited men to assault her in the town of Mazan in the French countryside. A total of 50 other men were found guilty in the case.

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

Gisèle Pelicot, a 72-year-old former supply chain professional, had demanded that the first trial be held in open court to educate the public about assault under sedation. “It’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them,” she stated in court.

The case had a massive effect globally, with feminist organizations across all continents backing Gisèle Pelicot and international figures issuing statements in her support.

However, campaigners and attorneys noted that the case highlighted how prevalent and commonplace 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 filming up a woman’s skirt in a supermarket, and investigators later discovered videos of the assaults on his electronic devices.

The appeal in the Pelicot case occurs amid growing criticism of the French justice system’s handling of rape. Several damning reports since the first trial have shown that the system continues to disappoint rape victims on a significant level.

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

One teenager who accused several firefighters of abuse was found to have suffered “re-traumatization and discriminatory treatment” by the French justice system, which failed to protect her dignity “by permitting the use of moralising and guilt-inducing statements, which propagated 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 attached to 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 proceeding to trial remains dangerously low, with only 3.3% of complaints leading to convictions.

More than 130 feminist groups are campaigning for comprehensive changes 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 kind of electric shock, it allowed a lot of people to talk about rape and spousal assault. However, there has not really been a political response. There is a great deal missing in France, and major flaws [in the justice system],” said Anne-Cécile Mailfert of the Fondation des Femmes.

Separately, parliament is currently debating adding 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 altered French society’s understanding of consent and that changing the legal wording would help “a societal shift to move from a tolerance of assault to a respect for autonomy.”

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