Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: CHRISTOPHE SIMON / AFP 8:45 p.m., March 28, 2024

A “scenario” was carried out this Thursday in Haut-Vernet, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, where, on July 8, little Émile disappeared. No communication has been made, at this stage, on possible results. The mystery remains. 

The mystery of the disappearance of little Emile, two and a half years old, in an Alpine village in July, remained unsolved on Thursday after a "scenario" which brought together his family, neighbors and witnesses, almost nine months after the start of investigation. This simulation, which began around 9 a.m., ended at the end of the afternoon without communication at this stage on its possible results.

In total, 17 people were summoned by the courts to reconstruct the moment when the boy was last seen in the hamlet of Haut-Vernet in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, on July 8. To ensure that this new act of investigation takes place peacefully, access to the hamlet had been blocked since Wednesday 8 a.m. and will remain so until Friday 8 a.m. Haut-Vernet, located between Digne-les-Bains and Gap, was also completely prohibited from flying on Thursday, with drones mobilized to secure the site.

The hamlet of Haut-Vernet was completely closed to traffic this Thursday


Credit: Stéphane Burgatt/Europe 1

“Chronologically retrace the evening of July 8”

Under light rain and biting cold, around twenty journalists remained massed in front of the barrier prohibiting access, monitored by two gendarmerie cars, noted AFPTV journalists. “The objective of the scenario is to retrace chronologically the evening of July 8 and to be able to confirm or deny the elements” collected by the investigators, explained to AFP Pierre Coursières, second in command of the gendarmerie group of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, specifying that “around a hundred gendarmes” were mobilized “in the area”.

The "scenario", which is not strictly speaking a classic reconstruction, no serious offense having been noted in this case, focused in particular on the last minutes during which the little boy was seen around 5:15 p.m. , in the only street of this tiny town of 25 inhabitants located at an altitude of 1,200 meters, on the slopes of the Trois-Evêchés massif. The boy was wearing a yellow top, white shorts and hiking shoes.

No lead is left aside

First opened for a worrying disappearance in Digne-les-Bains, the investigation was quickly entrusted to two investigating judges from Aix-en-Provence, then reclassified as criminal grounds for "kidnapping" and "sequestration". Accident, fall, kidnapping? No trail has been put aside, even if that of the fatal fall has faded following multiple unsuccessful searches around the hamlet.

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As for the trail of Émile's maternal grandfather, Philippe V., placed under assisted witness status in an investigation into alleged violence and sexual assault in the early 1990s within a private religious school in Pas -de-Calais, it has always been studied, "at the same level" as the others, according to a source close to the matter interviewed a few days ago.