AVIGNON, France, Nov 19- Gisele Pelicot, subjected to mass rape organized by her husband over 10 years, on Tuesday condemned the cowardice of the dozens of men accused of abusing her who claim they didn’t realize it was rape, adding that France’s patriarchal society must change.

In a trial that has grabbed the world’s attention and become an examination of the pervasiveness of sexual violence, a French man has pleaded guilty to drugging his wife, 71, and inviting strangers to their house to rape her while she was unconscious.

The majority of the remaining 50 men on trial said they did not know they were raping her, did not intend to rape her, or blamed all the actions on her husband, who they testified had manipulated them. “For me, this is the trial of cowardice; there is no other way to describe it,” Gisele Pelicot said, adding that there was no excuse for abusing her when she was unconscious.

Video recorded by her husband and played in court over the past weeks has counted several occasions on which she remained immobile, snoring at moments, as her husband and others abused her.

“When you walk into a bedroom and see a motionless body, at what point (do you decide) not to react,” she said in an address to the accused, many of whom were in the courtroom. “Why did you not leave immediately to report it to the police?”

Gisele Pelicot only discovered the abuse four years ago when police found videos and photos her husband had taken of the abuse he orchestrated and also committed. Gisele Pelicot told the court she was angry at the accused, not least because any of them could, at any time, have ended her ordeal had they denounced her husband.

“They should be accountable for their acts. They raped. Rape is rape,” she said.

It is the third time she has testified in the court in Avignon, southern France, as the trial approaches delivering its verdicts and sentences around Dec 20. Under French law, she could have asked for the trial to be held on camera. Instead, she asked that it be public and that it would help other women to speak out and show that victims have nothing to be ashamed of.

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“It is time for society to look at this macho, patriarchal society and change the way it looks at rape,” she said, addressing the court. She also said that she would never forgive her husband.

The two sons of Pelicots asked the court on Monday to punish him heavily and also stated in court that they would not ever forgive the man who had abused them, leaving him dead to them. Their sister, Caroline Darian, testified, saying she believed Dominique Pelicot had also doped and abused her.

When it was Dominique Pelicot’s turn to speak Tuesday, he said repeatedly that he had not abused Caroline Darian or his grandchildren. By this point, his daughter interrupted him from the courtroom, shouting, “You’re a liar!”  “You don’t dare to tell the truth!” she shouted. “You will die in a lie. You are alone in your lie.”

Earlier in the trial, Dominique Pelicot had been heard admitting to raping his wife while she was unconscious, as well as inviting others to rape her. He had told the court: “I am a rapist, just like all the others in this room.”