Little Emile, 2 and a half years old, has been missing for more than six weeks in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. His large family still lives in seclusion in the heights of the village of Vernet.
On July 8, at the end of the afternoon, little Emile S vanished near his grandparents’ vacation home. For more than twenty years, the large, very pious family has been meeting in their second home in the hamlet of Haut-Vernet to spend the summer. The grandparents are in their fifties. He is an osteopath, officiating near Marseille, she is a stay-at-home mother for their large siblings: ten children, the youngest of whom are not yet ten years old. The eldest, Marie, is the mother of Emile and his little sister, Alaïs. All these little people, as well as the father of the little boy, Colomban, are still, more than a month and a half after the events, recluse in the village.
Access to the twenty or so dwellings that make up Haut-Vernet has been restricted to its inhabitants only since mid-July. This allows the family and their neighbors to escape the onlookers and the media, which have invaded the rest of the village. According to the locals, they don’t talk to anyone. They would sometimes be seen passing by from afar, at the market, or quite regularly, at the local swimming pool. During their visit to town, to go to the swimming pool, they only speak to one person according to a witness, interviewed at the end of July. “They don’t talk to anyone except the lifeguard.” The latter gave an interview to the Parisian, defending the family’s “careless” outings. “Oui, they continue to live, what! (…) They have the right to go to the swimming pool anyway. If only to occupy Emile’s little sister.”
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Do not stir up rumors more than necessary
The silence of Emile’s family very quickly fueled rumors, sometimes the most absurd. “Very fundamentalist Catholics”, “extreme right-wing activists” … The past of Emile’s parents and grandparents was quickly pointed out, even insinuating their membership of a sect, which could have a link with the disappearance . If they themselves did not wish to break the silence, their neighbors and relatives stepped up to the plate. “Parents and grandparents do not want to express themselves, you have to respect that. Everything that is said about us is a bunch of bullshit. Like this story of a burning house in Beaujeu. We are Catholic and right-wing, so what? protested one of them at the microphone of BFMTV.
The village of Le Vernet is trying to “continue to live” in parallel with the investigation, as confided by François Balique, mayor of the hamlet to Sudinfo this Tuesday, August 22. “I understand that this moves many French people (…) people think it could happen to them too” he adds. “The media seized it to make the audience and the ratings. They said that the family was not normal. They spoke of the rather particular political commitment of the father. When I closed the town, we said it was to hide something.” According to someone close to the family, interviewed by Paris Match a few weeks ago, this media omnipresence is one of the reasons for the silence of Emile’s family. “We reproach them for not being agitated? The investigators and the prefect advised them not to speak to the press. They do not want to hinder the course of the investigations.”
Society/Sex/Psycho Journalist
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