Judges in the French city of Avignon will hand down verdicts against 51 men on Thursday in a massive rape trial that turned a 72-year-old woman into a feminist icon.

For almost ten years, Gisèle Pelicot had been drugged by her ex-husband Dominique, who then invited dozens of men he had recruited online to have sex with her in her bed at the house while she was unconscious and ignorant.

It was her decision to give up her anonymity and throw this lawsuit into the open - in her words, "swapping sides of shame" from the victim to the rapist.

Although he admits the charges against him, most of the other men on trial deny that they committed rape.

Prosecutors have asked for a prison sentence of between four and 20 years, the maximum sentence for a charge of aggravated rape.

One of the defendants, who admitted the charges, has said that the trial was rushed and "botched".

Activists say this case proves the need for consent to be built into France's enforcement laws, as it is in other European countries.

From 2011 to 2020, Dominique Pelicot injected his wife with tranquilizers and sleeping pills without her knowledge, crushed them into powder and added them to her food and drink.

Gisèle Pelicot suffered memory loss and blackouts due to the drugs and has spoken about 10 years of her life that were lost.

He was finally caught because a security guard called the police for taking pictures up women's skirts in a supermarket.

"I thought we were a close couple," she once told the court. Instead, her husband was going to a famous but now banned website called Coco.fr to invite local men to their home to have sex with her while she was comatose.

"I was sacrificed on the altar of their interests," Gisèle Pelicot said early in the trial.

Since the beginning of September, Judge Roger Arata and his four colleagues have heard how 50 men, who are now between 27 and 74, visited the home of the Pelicots in the small town of Mazan.

Dominique Pelicot admitted all the charges against him - drugging and raping his wife and hiring dozens of men to rape her. Prosecutors are asking the judges to give him the maximum 20-year prison term for aggravated rape.

"I am a rapist," he told the judges. "I admit all the facts (of the case) in full." He has asked for forgiveness from his ex-wife and three children, but his actions have torn the Pelicot family apart. from each other.

The other defenders come from all walks of life and most of them are from a 50km (30 mile) radius of the town of Mazan nam Pelicots. Because they are firefighters, security guards and truck drivers have earned them the name Monsieur-Tout-Le-Monde (Mr. Everyman). Most of them also have children.

Fifty of the 51 are accused of rape and attempted rape.

Romain V, 63, faces up to 18 years in prison if convicted. He is accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot six times while he knew he was HIV-positive. His lawyer says he could not have passed on the disease because he had years of treatment.

Another 10 men could be sentenced to 15-17 years, and prosecutors are seeking prison sentences of 10-14 years for 38 of the others.

Before the verdicts came, one of the few men who admitted rape to the BBC through his daughter said that many people had made up their minds immediately: “There was not enough time. For me it was a bottle job."

The average prison term for rape in France is 11.1 years, according to the French justice ministry.

One man is charged with aggravated sexual assault rather than rape. Prosecutors say Joseph C, a retired sports coach and 69-year-old man, should face the lighter sentence of four years in prison.

Some of them have apologized for their behavior, but many have not.

Cyril B said it was difficult for Gisèle Pelicot.

"I'm ashamed of myself, I'm ashamed," said Jean-Pierre M this week. His lawyer hoped the judges would take his ordeal into account.

Not only has this case been kept under full public view, but all of the evidence against the accused was videotaped by Dominique Pelicot at the time and then played in court.

Gisèle Pelicot, who has divorced her husband, said that the men treated me like a rag doll". "Don't talk to me about sex scenes. These are rape scenes," she said.

Therefore, none of the accused can challenge the accusation that they were in Gisèle Pelicot's room while she was comatose.

Their defense has relied on the definition of rape, as it currently includes any form of sexual intercourse "by violence, coercion, threat or surprise" . This means that prosecutors must prove that they intend to rape.

Public prosecutor Laure Chabaud told the court that no one could say "since she didn't say anything, she gave her consent - that belongs to the past".

Thousands of people have joined protests against Gisèle Pelicot in France. And women have stood outside court every day chanting one of the phrases her lawyers said in court: "Shame changes sides."

Gisèle Pelicot has been present almost every day of the trial, appearing in court in her sunglasses just before nine o'clock.

Her decision to give up anonymity is very unusual, but she has stood firm at every moment. "I want every woman who has been raped to say: Madame Pelicot did it, I can too."

But she has been clear that behind her resistance is a "field of ruins" and despite the widespread credit for what she has done, she is a reluctant warrior.

"She keeps repeating, 'I'm normal,' she doesn't want to be considered an icon," her lawyer Stéphane Babonneau told the BBC's Emma Barnett.

"Usually women have a strength in them that they can't even imagine and they have to trust themselves. That's her message."

Lawyers for the 51 defendants have emphasized the normal lives they led, although court-appointed psychologist Laurent Layet confirmed they were neither normal nor "monsters".

In the early weeks of the trial, the mayor of the town of Mazan told the BBC that the case could have been far more serious because no one died.

But the comments sparked outrage across France and the mayor quickly apologized. He has since said that he is withdrawing from public life.

The fact that the trial was held in public meant that every session was reported at length and in detail.

Elsa Labouret from the campaign group Dare to be Feminist told the BBC: “(Gisèle Pelicot) decided to make this bigger than herself. To do this about the way we, as a society, deal with sexual violence."