AVIGNON, France — A French pensioner went on trial on Monday for allowing scores of strangers to rape his wife after he drugged her in a case that has horrified the West European country.

Fifty men, who he recruited online, are also being tried in the southeastern city of Avignon alongside the main suspect, a 71-year-old former employee at France's power utility company EDF.

Police counted a total of 92 rapes committed by 72 men, 51 of whom were identified.

The men, ages between 26 and 74, are accused of raping the 72-year-old woman, who, her lawyers say, was so heavily sedated she was not aware of the abuse, which went on for a decade.

The trial will be "a horrible ordeal" for her, said Antoine Camus, one of her lawyers.

"For the first time, she will have to live through the rapes that she endured over 10 years," he told Agence France-Presse (AFP), adding that his client had "no recollection" of the abuse, which she only discovered in 2020.

The woman, who turned up at court supported by her three children, could have opted for a trial behind closed doors, but "that's what her attackers would have wanted," Camus said.

Some came back six times

Police began to investigate the defendant Dominique P. in September 2020, when he was caught by a security guard secretly filming under the skirts of three women in a shopping center.

Police said they found hundreds of pictures and videos of his wife on his computer, visibly unconscious and mostly in the fetal position.

The images are alleged to show dozens of rapes in the couple's home in Mazan, a village of 6,000 people some 33 kilometers (21 miles) from Avignon in the Provence region.

Investigators also found chats on a site called coco.fr, since shut down by police, in which he recruited strangers to come to their home and have intercourse with his wife.

Dominique P. admitted to investigators that he gave his wife powerful tranquilizers, especially Temesta, an anxiety-reducing drug.

The abuse started in 2011, when the couple was living near the capital Paris, and continued after they moved to Mazan two years later.

The husband took part in the rapes, filmed them and encouraged the other men using degrading language, according to prosecutors.

No money changed hands.

The accused rapists included a forklift driver, a fire brigade officer, a company boss and a journalist.

Some were single, others married or divorced, and some were family men. Most participated just once, but some took part up to six times.

Murder probe

Their defense has been that they simply helped a libertine couple live out its fantasies, but Dominique P. told investigators that all were aware that his wife had been drugged without her knowledge.

An expert said her state "was closer to a coma than to sleep."

Her husband told prosecutors that only three men left the house quickly after arriving, while all others proceeded to have intercourse with his wife.

Dominique P., who said he was raped by a male nurse when he was 9, is ready to face "his family and his wife," his lawyer Beatrice Zavarro told AFP.

This trial may not be his last. He has also been charged with a 1991 murder and rape, which he denies, and an attempted rape in 1999, to which he admitted after DNA testing.

Experts say the man does not appear to be mentally ill; however, in documents seen by AFP, they said he had a need to feel "all-powerful" over the female body.

The trial is due to last until December 20.