Gisèle Pelicot: Five unanswered questions from the trial

“There will be a ‘before’ and there will be an ‘after’ the Pelicot trial,” one Parisian man told the BBC in the early days of the trial.

For many, this sentiment has only grown over the last few months during which the intense media coverage of the Pelicot trial generated countless conversations around rape, consent and gender violence.

“What we need to do is have much, much harsher sentences,” Nicolas and Mehdi, two Mazan residents, told the BBC. They said they were “disgusted” when they found out one of the defendants was a man they had played football with.

“With longer sentences they’ll at least they’ll think twice before doing stuff like this,” they said, adding that it was “crazy unfair” that some of the men could come out of jail in the next few months.