PARIS, France - A Frenchwoman who wrote a bestselling biography detailing the shocking abuse she survived at the hands of a male parental figure who eventually became her husband was facing a life sentence for shooting her abuser to death, CNN reports.

Valerie Bacot, 40, admitted to French officials that she fatally shot Daniel Polette, a man who was her mother's boyfriend before he became Bacot's husband, and who began raping Bacot when she was about 12 or 13 years of age.

On Friday, Bacot stood before court officials, waiting to hear the sentence sought against her by prosecutors.

CNN reports that she fainted in apparent shock and relief upon hearing that the prosecution asked for a lenient sentence of five years in prison, with four years of the term suspended.

If approved, Bacot would walk free, since she's already been in detention for one year.

According to CNN, after Bacot passed out, emergency services was called to the courtroom in eastern France's Chalon-sur-Saone. 

In her bestselling book, "Tout Le Monde Savait" ("Everyone Knew"), published in May, Bacot said Polette was the father of their four children. She also explained that Polette, who was 25 years older than her, began molesting her when she was 12 years old, impregnated her at 17, and went on to abuse her over the course of 18 years.

"I simply wanted to protect myself. Protect my life, the life of my children. In my eyes, nothing else ever mattered," she wrote in her autobiography.

CNN says a petition in support of Bacot's freedom, was launched by activists in January and garnered over 705,000 signatures.

In her book, Bacot ?admitted that she feels should be punished, but that she also feels killing Polette was the only way to protect herself and her children from a man who was a threat to their lives.

"I am not only a victim. I killed him; it is only normal that I should be punished. But if my sentence is heavy, that will mean to me that he had the right to behave the way he behaved with me," Bacot wrote. ?