The French prime minister Francois Bayrou has praised the courage of Gisèle Pelicot, following a mass rape trial in which her ex-husband and fifty other defendants were found guilty. Dominique Pelicot was jailed for twenty years for organising the repeated drugging and rape of his former wife by dozens of strangers over a decade. Also in the programme, President Macron of France in Mayotte vows to rebuild the cyclone hit territory; and we hear from Angelina Jollie who plays the diva, Maria Callas. (Photo: Gisele Pelicot with her grandson, after the end of the trial in Avignon. Credit: Shutterstock)
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Hello and welcome to NewsHour.
It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service Studios in London.
I'm Tim Franks.
We're beginning with a story which beggars belief and yet, in truth, could not be more prosaic, and that is part of its utterly shocking nature, that such apparently ordinary men were capable of committing such an appalling crime in such an apparently blithe manner.
I'm talking of the conviction in France of the 51 men who, over a period of almost a decade, raped Giselle Pelicault.
She'd been drugged, sedated, so she lost consciousness by her husband, Dominique, who then recruited dozens of men to rape her while he videoed the abuse.
Dominique Pelico has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Gisela herself waived her right anonymity from the start.
She wanted, as she put it, to make shame, swap sides from the victim to the rapist.
After the verdict, she gave this short statement outside court.
It is with deep emotion that I.
Speak to you today.
This trial has been a very difficult ordeal, and at this moment I'm thinking, first of all, of my three children, David, Caroline and Florian.
And I'm also thinking of my grandchildren.
Because they are the future.
And it's also for them that I fought this battle, as well as my.
Daughters in law, Aurore and Celine.
I also think of all the other families affected by this tragedy.