France may introduce changes to its rape law to include consent for the first time, after a mass rape trial shook the country, challenging the limits of existing legislation and prompting some leading politicians to call for change.

Dominique Pelicot has admitted to drugging his wife and recruiting dozens of men online to rape her while she was unconscious and 50 men are facing trial alongside him.

They are accused of taking turns on the drugged and inert body of Gisèle Pelicot while her husband recorded the horror for his swelling private video library.

Despite video evidence against them, at least 35 of the defendants have denied the rape charges, claiming that Dominique Pelicot tricked them into believing they were taking part in a sex game, or that Gisele Pelicot was feigning sleep.

Dominique Pelicot denied this, telling the court his co-defendants knew exactly what the situation was.

The case has prompted deep soul-searching in France, with consent at the heart of the matter.

"I am determined that things change in this society," Gisele Pelicot told the Avignon court on Wednesday.

Gisele Pelicot insisted from the start that the trial should be open to the public, and has encouraged other women who have been sexually assaulted to come forward.

"I wanted all women who are rape victims to say to themselves 'Mrs Pelicot did it, so we can do it too'," she said. "It's not us who should feel shame, but them (the perpetrators).”

France’s new Justice Minister Didier Migaud recently said he is in favour of updating the law, as has President Emmanuel Macron, after France blocked the inclusion of a consent-based rape definition in a European directive in 2023.

"I believe it is beyond understanding for our fellow citizens to refuse to include consent in the definition of rape," Migaud told lawmakers earlier this month.

A 2023 survey by one of France's main polling institutes, IFOP, found that nine out of 10 people polled wanted France to support the EU directive.

Consent-based rape law already exists in Sweden, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and more than a dozen other European countries, with the rise of the feminist #MeToo movement prompting legislative reform in some jurisdictions since 2017.

However, French criminal law defines rape as a penetrative act or oral sex act committed on someone using "violence, coercion, threat or surprise." It makes no clear mention of the need for a partner's consent and prosecutors must prove the intention to rape to secure a guilty verdict, five legal experts said. (Agencies)