The abuse is said to have gone on for over a decade, with the husband filming what happened.

Today, the woman, Giselle Pellicot, who has abandoned her right to anonymity, told the court of her horror at discovering what had been done to her.

Our Paris correspondent Andrew Harding has the story, and his report contains distressing detail.

In a courthouse in the city of Avignon, one woman's voice shook France to the core today.

This is Giselle Pellicot, walking tall, choosing to face the cameras as she came to tell her bone-chilling story.

On trial here are these 51 Frenchmen, all accused of raping Pellicot as she lay unconscious in her own bed, drugged by her own husband.

In the courtroom facing that husband, pictured standing here, Pellicot described the moment her happy marriage collapsed, when a French policeman showed her pictures from her husband's laptop, pictures of strangers raping her.

Her testimony, spoken here by a translator.

It was hard to recognize myself.

Then the officer showed me a second photo, and a third.

I asked him to stop.

It was unbearable.

I was lifeless, in my bed, and a man was raping me.

My world fell apart.

I'm speaking now not for myself, but for all the women who are drugged and abused.

After giving evidence, Pellicot kept her composure in front of the media.

I think I've said everything I could.

It's not easy.

There is a lot of pressure.

We're going to have to fight to the end.

This trial is going to last four months.

Pellicot's husband, Dominique, has already confessed to everything, to repeatedly drugging his wife over the course of more than a decade.

But many of the other men also on trial for raping her have told police that either they didn't realize she was unconscious, or they assumed her husband's consent was enough.

But that kind of argument has provoked fury.

Today, the husband's lawyer said other accused might argue it was sex, not rape.

But when the videos themselves are shown in court, there will be no doubt what really happened.

Pellicot's own daughter attended the trial this morning.

She's campaigned for the issue of drugging and raping to be taken far more seriously across France.

And outside court, activists called for the courage shown by one woman to lead to wider changes in laws and attitudes.

Andrew Harding, BBC News, France.