Giselle Pelicot has emerged as the most influential personality for 2024, according to a poll by Odoxa for the French media.

In the poll, Peliko is ahead of US President Donald Trump, who ranks second on the list, and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, who ranks third.

Giselle Pelicot, the protagonist of the long rape trial in the city of Mazan that concluded on December 19, topped the list in the poll of the most notable personalities of 2024, according to Le Figaro.

The list of the most important figures in the world’s top ten charities, “Le Figaro”, is the most popular in the world.

During the trial, which lasted nearly three months, Giselle Pelico was admired for refusing to exercise her right to a closed-door trial, saying she wanted to help change the shame side of the story when it comes to rape victims and perpetrators. Her ex-husband Dominique said he would not appeal, unlike 17 of his co-defendants.

“I’m thinking about my three children. I think about my grandchildren because they are the future and that’s what I fought this fight for. I also think of all the other families affected by this tragedy and the unidentified victims whose stories remain in the shadows. We share the same struggle,” she said, cheered by hundreds of citizens who gathered in front of the Avignon courthouse to express their solidarity.

It was Giselle’s personality that left its mark on French people, not the trial itself, the French publication points out, citing the poll’s findings.

Anxiety due to political crisis

Those who were asked to rank the important events of the year decided that her trial was less important than the person herself (the trial came in sixth place). First came “political instability” after Emmanuel Macron dissolved the French National Assembly last June.

For 34% of French people, political chaos is the most important event of the year, which also causes them stress.

The ongoing political crisis, after a fourth prime minister was appointed in less than a year, had almost twice the impact on respondents than international events such as Donald Trump’s re-election in the United States (20%) or the war by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon (17%)

The war in Ukraine concerns only 10% of French respondents, a “radical change” in public opinion after three years of war, notes Odoxa. Next comes France’s record-breaking debt, after a single positive event: the Paris Olympics.

In terms of personalities around the world, after the top three – Pelicot, Trump, Zelensky – come Russian President Vladimir Putin (15%), his French counterpart Emanuel Macron as well as billionaire Elon Musk (with 14% each).

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ranks fourth (10%) and Democratic outgoing US President Joe Biden ranks fifth (6).

The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is at the bottom…of the list with just 3%, the French publication said.