The mayor of Le Vernet has said “our only hope is Emile has been taken and is alive” in a new interview, as the whereabouts of the French toddler who went missing last Saturday remain unknown.
Francois Balique spoke to French newspaper Le Figaro about possible explanations for the two-year-old boy’s disappearance from his grandparents’ home in the Alpine village over the weekend.
Mr Balique said: “Our only hope now is that he’s been taken and is alive. It’s the last thing we can hope for and it’s already terrible. We could conceive that someone wanting a child passed by the area, saw this beautiful little boy and took him away. He couldn’t survive alone in the wild, that’s for sure.”
The physical search for Emile was called off yesterday, as law enforcement officials shift the focus of their investigation to sifting through evidence that’s been collected so far.
Local prosecutor Remy Avon said: “The investigation into the causes of his disappearance will continue, notably through analysis of the considerable amount of information and elements gathered over four days.”
