Gisèle Pelicot, who survived nearly a decade of rapes by dozens of men, will sue Paris Match magazine for invasion of privacy, her lawyers said on Thursday.
In its latest edition, Paris Match published seven pictures of Pelicot accompanied by a man described as her companion walking in the streets in her new home town.
Pelicot received international acclaim for waiving her right to anonymity in the trial last year of her ex-husband and other defendants.
“It’s not us who should feel shame, but them,” she said of the perpetrators.
Dominique Pelicot, her former husband, drugged her for nearly a decade so he and dozens of strangers he recruited online could rape her. Dominique Pelicot, who admitted the charges, kept hundreds of videos of the attacks on his computer in a file entitled “abuse”. A French court sentenced him to 20 years in prison in December.
“Every time the intimacy of our client’s personal life is violated, we will react and seek a court decision,” the lawyer Antoine Camus said on Thursday. Camus said it was “shocking” and “disappointing” that Paris Match would secretly take pictures of Pelicot, “whose ordeal was the subject of 3,000 pictures and videos”.
He accused the magazine of “having learned nothing from the four-month trial”.
Contacted by Agence France-Presse, Paris Match had no comment.
Pelicot was included in Time magazine’s list published on Wednesday of the world’s most influential people in 2025.
