The parents of the French toddler Émile (2.5) have reacted for the first time to the disappearance of their son, who has been missing for almost two months. “We fear the worst, but we still hope,” said the concerned parents. There are several theories about what may have happened to the toddler. Ève Chancel, a journalist with the newspaper ‘Le Parisien’, has meanwhile opened a new avenue based on two testimonies. Little Émile may have fallen on his way to his favorite tree house.
Two-and-a-half-year-old Émile has been untraceable since July 8. The toddler was playing in his grandparents’ garden that day in Haut-Vernet, a hamlet of 125 people in southeastern France, when he disappeared around 5:30 p.m. Investigators launched a large-scale search and combed the entire region, but without success. Since the end of July, sniffer dogs have also been active in Haut-Vernet.
“Hope for a Miracle”
For mother Marie and father Colomban, the mysterious disappearance of their son Émile is a true nightmare. The couple first responded in an interview with the Catholic magazine ‘Famille Chrétienne’. “We can only imagine the worst, but at the same time we keep hoping,” says Colomban. “Sometimes we are overwhelmed by sadness and fear. We despair for a moment, but then it is as if we are lifted up by hope,” says Marie.
The concerned parents say they hope for “a miracle from God”, but also have great confidence in the work of the researchers. They have shown great professionalism and empathy since the beginning.
LOOK. It remains a mystery what happened to the missing Émile
In the interview, the parents also denounce the many gossip that circulates about their family. For example, it became known earlier that Émile’s family is very right-wing and Catholic. French media also found out that Colomban had to appear in court in 2018 for a suspected attack on a group of foreigners. He was also active within the extreme right-wing group Bastion Social Marseille. In 2021 he was on the electoral list of Eric Zemmour, a politician who was previously charged with inciting racial discrimination.
And then there’s the story about Émile’s grandparents’ house that was set on fire a few years ago. Possibly it was a hate action against their extreme right-wing sympathies.
“Disinformation and hatred exist, and this has been shockingly confirmed after the disappearance of Émile,” said Marie and Colomban. “We are aware that most journalists do not understand the Catholic world. Everything can be distorted or even deliberately caricatured (…). Some nasty media sources have taken the liberty of saying anything about us under the pretense that we are Catholics.”
Treehouse
Meanwhile, two new witnesses in the case have come forward. “It concerns a teenager and a retired man with a dog. Both would have seen Émile shortly before he disappeared,” reports Ève Chancel, journalist at ‘Le Parisien’. “The teenager is said to have seen Émile on a street leading to the center of Haut-Vernet, while the retired man claims that the toddler walked to the place “where the children have a special tree house”. That place is potentially dangerous because the cabin is located “on a hill with a cliff nearby,” says Chancel.
The French weekly ‘Le Nouveau Detective’ confirms this line of thinking, basing it on “a source close to the investigation”. The latter claims that on the morning of July 8, little Émile went to play with his nephews in the tree house “a little further along the steep path that leads to the Col du Labouret mountain pass”. In the hut, Émile was reportedly able to relax, away from his “strict grandfather”.
“Refusing was not an option”
When the children had to go home for lunch, Émile refused. He wanted to stay in the cabin. “The others almost had to force him home,” it sounds. After lunch, the toddler first took an afternoon nap, but when he woke up around 4:30 p.m., the child only wanted one thing: to go back to the tree house. However, Émile’s grandfather had other plans. “He wanted to make a fence for the horses in a neighboring pasture. All children had to help, refusing was not an option,” writes ‘Le Nouveau Detective’.
While his family was collecting the material for the fence, Émile played in the garden for a while. Shortly afterwards, the toddler disappeared. Although nothing is certain at the moment, there is a chance that Émile went to the tree house on his own and unfortunately fell there. It is an option that the researchers are considering, but which has not yielded any results for the time being. For example, the detectives already searched in the vicinity of the hut and found no trace of the little boy.
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