During the 2024 public trial in Avignon concerning the mass sexual assaults of Gisèle Pelicot, courtroom capacity was limited. On 23 October, more than one hundred people queued before 7 a.m. for access to an adjoining room carrying a video feed of the proceedings.
Pelicot's decision to waive anonymity and insist on a public trial gave attendance a wider social meaning. Yet openness did not create unlimited physical space. Those waiting were seeking a place to hear the evidence as it was presented, even if only on a screen next door. The queue showed how a case about one woman's abuse had become a public reckoning.