The UK’s Queen Camilla met French rape survivor Gisele Pelicot on Monday, Buckingham Palace said in a statement, and told her she had been left “speechless” by her memoir.
“This afternoon, Her Majesty received Madame Gisele Pelicot at Clarence House,” the brief statement said, referring to the woman who has become a symbol of the global fight against sexual violence.
The two women met over tea for about 30 minutes and Camilla told Pelicot that she had read her memoir “in the last two days”.
“I couldn’t put it down,” the Press Association news agency reported her saying.
“I’ve met so many survivors of rape and sexual abuse I never thought I could be shocked by anything any more, but I was shocked at your case it left me speechless,” the queen added.
Camilla has long been a campaigner against sexual and domestic violence, speaking out about the issue on many occasions.
Last year, she wrote a private letter to Pelicot, 73, who was drugged and raped for a decade by her now ex-husband and strangers he enlisted online.
“She was tremendously affected by the Madame Pelicot case in France and that lady’s extraordinary dignity and courage,” a palace source told Newsweek magazine at the time.
“Because as she rightly put it, why should she be made to feel like a victim or hide away in shame?”
– ‘Trying to rebuild’ –
Pelicot, who waived her right to anonymity during the 2024 trial of her ex-husband and dozens of strangers who raped her while she was unconscious, said she had been “overwhelmed” to receive Camilla’s letter.
Pelicot’s husband, Dominique, was tried alongside 50 other men and sentenced to 20 years for aggravated rape in the southern French city of Avignon in December 2024.
Dozens of men who visited the family home to rape Gisele Pelicot, who was unconscious after being drugged by her husband, were handed terms of between three and 15 years.
Pelicot has been in the UK to promote her book, titled “A Hymn to Life”, which covers the full arc of her 50-year marriage.
She told AFP earlier this month: “I’m doing better. After the trial, I took stock of my life and today I am trying to rebuild on this field of ruins.
“Despite all these ordeals, even in the darkest periods, I have always sought flashes of joy; I am looking towards the future, towards joy.
“I know this may surprise some who expect to see me in tatters, but I am determined to remain standing and dignified.”
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