Gisèle Pelicot said she had no regrets, but hope for the future after a judge sentenced her ex-husband to 20 years in prison for drugging and raping her for years.

Gisèle Pelicot spoke of her “very difficult ordeal” after 51 men were all found guilty Thursday in the drugging-and-rape trial.

Her husband orchestrating her sexual abuse by strangers could have broken her. But by standing up to her abusers in court and demanding they be ashamed, France's Gisele Pelicot has become a feminist champion.

A court in France has sentenced the ex-husband of Gisele Pelicot to 20 years in jail for drugging and raping her and allowing other men to rape her while she was unconscious, in abuse that lasted nearly a decade.

Hundreds of people have gathered in the southern French town of Avignon ahead of the verdict in a mass-rape trial in which dozens of men stand accused.

In the case of Gisele Pelicot's mass rape trial in France, dozens of men, including her ex-husband Dominique Pelicot, were found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting her.

Frenchwoman Gisele Pelicot, who survived a decade of sexual abuse by her husband and dozens of strangers, said she hoped her ordeal would help make the world a better place for "women and men alike" as her former spouse was jailed for 20 years.

Fifty-one men have now been brought to justice, but questions remain after the trial that has shocked France and the wider world

Activists of the feminist group NousToutes stage a demonstration outside the Louvre calling for better justice for rape victims after 50 men were convicted of raping Pelicot