“Very moving place due to the cruel, tragic, unforgettable events! Little Gregory, how can we stay silent? »asks “Marie of Finistère”in a message left in October 2023.
There are dozens of messages like this, written by travelers from all over France or even Belgium. These are “people of all ages, sometimes families”explains a local resident.
“These words are useless”plagues Danielle Didier, member of a collective which campaigns to change the image of Lépanges. In the notebook, “people should just talk about the church. Not from the case, not from Gregory, not from the cemetery”.
On a daily basis, “we don’t talk about it”assures a resident who is walking her son in a stroller and who does not wish to give her identity.
“We must let the water flow under the bridges”adds Adrien Michel, 37 years old, settled here three years ago for “tranquility” of the town. He has just dropped his daughter off at the village nursery school, among dozens of other children.
From now on, the village lives peacefully, and this dramatic day is far away, except when Vosges Morningthe local newspaper, published an article relating to the case: “People read it and talk about it”said a trader.
At the Bistrot, the Lépanges café-restaurant, a historian, a local press correspondent and a municipal councilor offer to discover “something else” of this village that they “like” and who is “more than the Grégory affair”as Cédric Prévot, the historian, says. Like his “17 businesses, 30 associations”in “tranquility”…
The choice of location is not trivial: in October 1984 and during the months that followed, the people of Lépange were “dispossessed” from this restaurant, where the editorial staff had taken up residence. At lunchtime, dozens of workers have lunch there. At the station, the trains no longer stop, but buses transport residents to work in Épinal or Rambervillers.
“A trauma for the village”
The butcher, established for twenty years, has “fed up” to be questioned about the affair, and says he gives the same answer, a bit annoyed, to all the journalists who enter his business.
Certainly, “something terrible happened, a real tragedy, a trauma for the village, and our initiative is absolutely not to take a position against the Grégory affair, against his journalistic treatment, or against the victims”assures Cédric Prévot.
But for the inhabitants of Lépanges, morbid curiosity is unwelcome, especially since it was in Docelles, six kilometers away, that the child’s body was found.
Owner of a house in Docelles for around twenty years, Jean-Michel Boucaud says he has never “never heard anyone talk about the affair” in this village. “I heard that they found the body here, with the Netflix series on the affair released in 2019, he says. People were a little disgusted. They don’t want to hear about it anymore. »
Docelles is, however, less mentioned, particularly in the media, than Lépanges, known as far away as Canada, according to a resident of a neighboring village. In Lépanges, “there is not only the fortieth anniversary of the Grégory affair, there is also the centenary of two paintings present in the church, listed as heritage since 2008”explains Cédric Prévot.
