The former partner of a co-defendant in a mass rape trial that has sparked horror and protests in France has broken down in tears and told the court she might herself have been sexually assaulted. “I don’t know if I was raped,” Emilie O told a criminal court in the south-eastern French city of Avignon on Monday. “It’s terrible. I will always have doubts.” Emilie O is the former partner of Hugues M, one of dozens of men accused of raping Gisèle Pelicot while she was drugged into unconsciousness by her now former husband, Dominique Pelicot. The 71-year-old, who has admitted inviting strangers into their home to rape her, has been on trial since the start of the month along with 50 other men aged between 26 and 74. Many of them have denied the accusations. Emilie O said she herself might have been drugged and sexually assaulted by Hugues M, her former companion. “I was manipulated and lived a lie,” said Emilie O, who lived with the man for five years. “I’m still questioning everything,” she said, without glancing at her former partner. Recounting her story, Emilie O broke down as she looked at Gisèle Pelicot, who smiled back at her in a show of support. The 33-year-old said she had first met Hugues M online. The two shared a passion for motorcycling. She described Hugues M as respectful and considerate but added that he was repeatedly unfaithful to her. She said he had needed “adrenaline that he only found by riding a motorbike and engaging in sexual relations”. Emilie O began seeing her life with former partner in a different light when she learned in 2021 of the charges against him. Her life was turned upside down when she received a call from the Avignon police. “I was summoned and told that Hugues had raped a woman in October 2019, a few days before my birthday,” she said. “I didn’t believe them; I was stunned, shocked. I asked to see the photo and then I realised that it wasn’t a nightmare,” she said. Hugues M has been charged with the “attempted rape” of Gisèle Pelicot. Emilie O told the court she had begun to doubt their entire relationship and now thought she may have suffered the same treatment. She told the court that one night in 2019 she had woken up to find her partner attempting to assault her. She launched a police complaint, but it was dismissed for “lack of material evidence”. She also told the court she had experienced “dizziness” between September 2019 and March 2020, but investigators did not detect any substances that might have affected her at the time. Gisèle Pelicot has testified that for years she had strange memory lapses and other health problems and thought she might have had Alzheimer’s. On Monday the Avignon court began examining evidence against five more defendants. Among them was Joan K, the youngest of the 50 co-defendants, who was 22 at the time of the alleged assaults. In 2019, he was absent for the birth of his own daughter on one of the occasions he is accused of sexually assaulting Gisèle Pelicot, a psychological profiler told the court. He is suspected of having visited the couple’s home in Mazan to rape Gisèle Pelicot on two occasions. Born in French Guiana, he joined his brother in Avignon when he was 16 before enlisting in the army. Joan K was in a relationship with a woman he met on the internet, but their time together was marked by “numerous” conflicts and “extramarital relations”, the court heard. At the time of their separation, Joan K’s partner was pregnant. Gisèle Pelicot has become an overnight feminist icon and received praise for demanding that the trial be open to the public to raise awareness about the use of drugs to commit sexual abuse. At the weekend a letter in support of Gisèle Pelicot signed by more than 200 prominent men was published in the French daily Libération.