French investigators have stopped searching for missing two-year-old Émile after five days of excavations around the Alpine hamlet of Le Vernet ‘yielded nothing’.
Rémy Avon, public prosecutor of Digne-les-Baines, said that 97 hectares had been scoured by 100 investigators, while volunteers turned out to cover more ground.
He said: ‘We are now entering a second phase, that of the long time when the investigators will study the hearings, telephone records or vehicle inspections.’
Émile vanished from his grandparents’ garden in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence on Saturday, raising fears he had been hit by a vehicle and the body taken away.
A gendarme commander assured previously: ‘Of course, we still have hope of finding him alive, but elsewhere. If he was dead in the perimeter the dogs would have smelled him.’
Two-year-old Émile, who disappeared from his grandparents’ garden in the Alps on Saturday
French gendarmes are briefed Volunteers before taking part in a search operation for two-and-a-half-year-old Emile who is reporting missing for two days, on July 10, 2023
A group of gendarmes goes on a hunt in search of little Emile, July 10, 2023
This week, French authorities have worked through 1.8 kilometres of road linking Vernet to Haut-Vernet.
Avon said categorically in the latest update that ‘these operations did not yield anything’.
Searches have so far brought together 800 gendarmes, firefighters, volunteers, helicopters, thermic camera drones, and sniffer dogs.
On Tuesday, airborne searchers were given a recording of the mother’s voice to play ‘as loud as possible’ from speakers on the aircraft.
Emergency services hoped the child would ‘be hidden in the countryside, and will come out when he hears his mother’s voice coming from a helicopter.’
Police are also exploring another hypothesis, that Émile could have been kidnapped.
They had previously ruled out the suggestion that he was abducted.
Marc Chappuis, the police officer in charge of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, said: ‘He is two-and-a-half years old, he was able to walk quite a distance.
‘But, all the hunts we have done for the past two days should have allowed us to locate him.’
Avon said earlier this week that as of yet ‘no element characterises a criminal offense likely to be at the origin of this disappearance.’
‘From the moment there is no offence, there is no person implicated,’ he repeated.
Searches have so far brought together 800 gendarmes, firefighters, volunteers, helicopters, thermic camera drones, and sniffer dogs
A gendarme is followed by cameras during his search, as about fifty mobile gendarmes from Gap sift through ‘1.8 km of road’, in France on July 13, 2023
Gendarmes meticulously search the outskirts of the village of Vernet on July 13, 2023
Émile was playing in the garden of his unnamed grandparents’ home in Haut-Vernet in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence on Saturday afternoon when he vanished.
His parents – who have not been named either – remained at their home near Marseille, 200 miles away, for the summer holidays.
The family was getting ready to leave the house when Émile took advantage of the inattention, officials said.
His grandparents came to put him in the car and found that he had gone.
The grandparents then alerted the authorities of Émile’s disappearance at around 5.15pm [4.15pm BST] on Saturday, at which point family members, police, emergency service workers, and local villagers started the search for the boy.
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