This Thursday, March 28, residents of Haut-Vernet, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, must participate in a “scenario”, a form of reconstruction of the disappearance of little Émile, two and a half years old. In the village, the atmosphere is heavy in the face of a matter that the inhabitants would like to see resolved or forgotten.
In a small restaurant at the foot of the town of Vernet, a resident and a regular of the place express, without consulting each other, the same feeling, when we talk about the investigation into the disappearance of Émile and the “situation” which must take place Thursday March 28. “We are fed up…“, they whisper. Since July, they have seen gendarmes and journalists parade, but see no progress in the investigations. An embarrassment sets in, behind the smiles and courtesy, as soon as the case is mentioned. Nobody does not wish to speak in its own name. The village even seems to have designated spokespersons: “ask the mayor”, say the residents. Several people direct us to a man who testified on the show Do not touch My TV. He alone, it seems, wishes to discuss. But he is not at home that day.
In Haut-Vernet, at the start of spring, rare houses are open.
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© FTV
Since July and the disappearance of Émile, the village of Vernet has been empty. Vacationers and second-time residents have left. Silence reigns under a steady rain. It is sometimes interrupted by the crowing of a rooster, the engine of a car or an insistent bell tower. The shutters of the houses are closed. In Haut-Vernet, where Émile disappeared, there are only around thirty people left. Below, in the village of Vernet, there are no more than a hundred of them. None wish to discuss Émile with journalists.
“I don’t have much time, sorry.”, says a young woman from Haut-Vernet, accompanied by an imposing white dog, like there are in the mountains. To protect his constituents, the mayor has, on several occasions, issued municipal decrees prohibiting access to the village for people who do not reside there. Wednesday March 27, the day before the reconstruction of Émile’s disappearance, access to Haut-Vernet is blocked by a barrier. Those who cross it risk a fine.
“It’s long, it’s not moving forward”said a resident to justify his silence to the press. “There’s nothing to say, we don’t know what happened.” Even in the hamlet, the subject is “taboo”, considers the former baker, installed in a nearby village, Seyne-les-Alpes: “I asked an elected official if more bread was needed for the reconstitution, he did not answer. I do not want to insist.”
Under the gray sky, at the foot of the leafless trees, brightly colored signs – yellow, green, red – remind us that in summer, Vernet is a holiday town. They indicate an educational farm, walks with donkeys, hiking trails, like the one that follows the transhumance route to Italy, “la Routo”. The rain carries with it the remains of winter and the snow that can still be seen on the dominant peaks.
“We only show the negative, even though we are in a place where there are lots of beautiful things, great initiatives,” regrets a man at the restaurant. “We no longer talk about Émile, everything is back to the way it was before”, assures another. In a gray house with red shutters, a person who came to do work for a few weeks confirms to us that since his arrival, Emile’s disappearance has rarely been mentioned by the locals. “Stop! Stop! Stop!”‘interrupts his roommate, who is coming out of his shower. “We’ve already been through the crash, we’ve already been through this. We don’t talk to journalists. Find someone else. I wish you a good day.”
The signs remind us that Vernet is both a tourist village and the place of commemoration of the crash of Germanwings flight 4U9525 in 2015.
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© FTV
On March 24, 2015, an airliner crashed into a nearby mountain. One hundred and fifty people died. The co-pilot committed suicide, taking passengers and crew with him. It is the Vernet which was designated to host the commemorative stele. Every year, the families of victims come to pay their respects there. The 2024 commemorations are just coming to an end.
It was four days later that the investigators decided to bring another tragedy to life in the village: that of Émile’s disappearance. For the reconstitution this March 28, only certain residents were summoned. “Not all of them, we don’t really know how they chose,” specifies an elected official. Once again, the hamlet will be cordoned off, once again, gendarmes and journalists will come to disturb the calm that those who decide to live in the mountains seek. “A reconstruction on what basis, with what facts? Have we found the murderer? The little one? What more are we going to learn?” annoys a trader. “For me, it is a lack of respect for the residents and for the family, when there is nothing new.”
In Vernet, since March 27, a municipal decree has prevented access to the hamlet of Haut-Vernet, for people who do not live there.
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© FTV
The leads, the suspicions raised by the investigators in the press, were quickly dismissed: “It didn’t do anything.” How could a little boy of two and a half years old disappear in a cul-de-sac hamlet? Everyone seems to want at all costs to avoid the trap set by this affair: a climate of generalized suspicion. “I have grandmother friends in Digne. This summer, it was nonsense, people thought they were investigators and arrested them if they had a little blond boy, like Émile,” says a woman.
The only journalist to have met Émile’s family, Samuel Pruvot, editor-in-chief of Famille Chrétienne, spoke of a close-knit group, which decided to “block”, by expressing as little as possible in the face of this ordeal. In Vernet too, the inhabitants seem united, in cautious silence. In the mist-covered Blanche valley, a grocer sums up: “Now we’re just like everyone else, we want to know.”
