Tragically, the remains of a French boy who disappeared without a trace eight months ago have been discovered in the Alps.
Ramblers discovered the bones of two-year-old Émile Soleil near the isolated family home from which he disappeared last year.
Saturday’s macabre discovery was described today as a key development in a criminal investigation that has baffled detectives since they launched a frantic search in the idyllic village of Le Vernet in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence on July 8.
The mysterious case has drawn comparisons to hit BBC drama The Missing, in which a young man disappears while on holiday with his family in France.
A statement issued by Aix-en-Provence prosecutors on Sunday said “genetic analysis identifies” the bones as belonging to Èmile.
He added that “criminal analysis” was also being carried out and that gendarmes were carrying out “additional investigations” in the area where they were found.
Hikers discovered the remains of two-year-old Émile Soleil (pictured) near the isolated family home from where he disappeared in July last year.
The gendarmes meticulously searched the outskirts of the town of Vernet last July.
The search location is two miles as the crow flies from the house in Haut-Vernet, a village south of Grenoble, where Émile was last seen with his grandfather, Philippe Vedovini, 58.
There had been no trace of Émile since then, and investigators refused to rule out any theories about the tragedy, including kidnapping and murder.
Émile was officially in the care of Mr. Vedovini on the day of his disappearance, while his parents took a break.
A witness saw Mr Vedovini, a physiotherapist-osteopath, chopping wood outside his house at the time Émile is believed to have left.
There was no immediate comment on the discovery of the bones of Émile’s family, who were all at Easter Sunday mass when they were informed.
Mr. Vedovini is a devout Catholic who abandoned his vocation as a monk to marry his wife, Anne Vedovini.
They raised 10 children, including Émile’s mother, who is now known by her married name, Marie Soleil, after marrying Émile’s father, 26-year-old Colomban Soleil.
Last week, several French media outlets, including Le Parisien and the highly respected investigative newspaper Le Canard enchaîné (The Chained Duck), reported disturbing new information about Vedovini.
“It is above all his past that raises questions,” wrote Le Parisien, while describing the details of a sexual abuse scandal at a Roman Catholic school in the 1990s.
Saturday’s macabre discovery was described today as a key development in a criminal investigation that has baffled detectives.
Volunteers participate in the search operation for Emile on July 10
He also confirmed that Mr Vedovini, who denies any wrongdoing and was not charged with any crime following the child abuse investigation, “has attracted the attention of the gendarmes and constitutes one of their many lines of investigation.”
Vedovini was training to be a monk when he worked at Riaumont, a Catholic community that includes a boarding school for troubled youth in northern France.
Located in Liévin, in Pas-de-Calais, it was run by Benedictine monks who received numerous complaints from former students between 2014 and 2017.
They said they had suffered sexual abuse, including rape, in the early 1990s, as well as periodic physical beatings.
Mr Vedovini, known as Brother Philippe when he worked at the school between 1991 and 1994, was involved in the investigation as an “assisted witness”.
Police have also examined the family’s far-right political background. Émile’s father, Colomban Soleil, 26, was arrested for “attacking foreigners” in 2018.
After the boy’s disappearance, a search was carried out in Émile’s countryside, but did not yield any results.
He appeared before judges in Aix-en-Provence and was released after promising to keep the peace.
At the time, Soleil was an activist linked to Action Francaise, the far-right nationalist and monarchist group, as well as the neo-fascist Bastion Social.
Three years later, in 2021, both Soleil and his wife ran as candidates in local elections in the Marseille area, supporting the Reconquista party of Éric Zemmour, the convicted racist and Islamophobe who tried to become president of France last year.
Their electoral slogans at the time identified them as “friends of Éric Zemmour” who wanted to “clean up the system.”
Lead prosecutor Rémy Avon, who is leading the judicial investigation into Émile’s disappearance, said all possibilities that Émile had been murdered, kidnapped or involved in an accident were being examined.
He confirmed that Émile’s parents’ home, in the southern town of La Bouilladisse, near Marseille, was searched in July, while grandparents’ homes nearby and in the Alps were also raided.
The saga is reminiscent of the BBC series The Missing, in which a young man disappears while on holiday with his family in France, only to die in a hit-and-run accident after chasing a fox.
French gendarmes participate in search operation for two-year-old Emile in July 2023
Volunteers participate in the search operation for Emile on July 10
Two gendarmes meticulously search the surroundings of a house on July 13, 2023
This was a call for witnesses after the disappearance of the little boy
Émile’s family had asked people to pray to Benoîte Rencurel, a French pastor who was said to have seen apparitions of the Virgin Mary between 1664 and 1718.
Meanwhile, the residents of Vernet referred to the place as a “town of the damned” due to its connection to the disaster.
In March 2015, Vernet was also cordoned off after a terrible plane crash in which 150 people died, including two babies.
The Germanwings Airbus A320 was deliberately shot down by co-pilot Andrés Lubitz, who had previously been treated for suicidal tendencies.
Many inhabitants of Vernet then participated in the search for possible survivors in the high mountains.
They also opened their homes to family and friends of those who died in the disaster.
Vernet residents were also shocked by the murder of the manager of a local cafe in the village 15 years ago.
Jeannette Grosos, manager of Café du Moulin, was brutally murdered by a customer in 2008.
Mayor François Balique said: “It was a real drama for the entire town, from which it took a lot to recover.”
One Vernat resident said: “Everyone says it: Vernet feels like a town of the damned.”