“Until proven otherwise, I call it a coincidence.” Here are the measured words this Thursday, June 27 from Frédéric Gille, college principal in the south of France. His mother, Françoise Boutteaux, a 73-year-old from Rémoise, has been missing for 15 days on the island of Sikinos in Greece.just like another French woman, Marie-Pierre Arfel, originally from Var.
The two women are traveling alone. They meet on site, on this Cyclades island of only 40 square kilometers. On Wednesday June 12, this former director of Adapei, departmental structures specializing in housing people with disabilities, and her new acquaintance both set off for a hike. Marie-Pierre Arfel will not give any further sign of life. Françoise Boutteaux contacted the manager of the hotel where she was staying, via Whatsapp, on Friday June 14. She explains in English that she fell, adding a photo of herself. The manager asks him for his GPS coordinates, they will never arrive.
A request for help from the Quai d’Orsay
Emergency services began searching the next day. “My sister and my uncle left there the following Mondayexplains Frédéric Gille. Their presence made it possible to maintain the search so that it did not stop. A week after the disappearance, they realized that the search would take longer than expected. They are concentrated in the south of the island, a very steep, very difficult place.”
Despite the investment of the police on site admitted and widely recognized by the son of Françoise Boutteaux (around sixty people mobilized every day), the two women are still not found. “We wrote to the Presidencyspecifies Frédéric Gille, who responded positively to us, telling us that she would get in touch with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. If the Quai d’Orsay has the means and the possibility of giving a boost to research there, we would be interested.”
In the absence of news, for the moment, from his mother, Frédéric Gille is forced to put forward a hypothesis: “Two French women missing in the same place, at the same time, that inevitably raises doubts and questions. But we cannot say that the Greek authorities are not doing everything they can to find Marie-Pierre and my mother and to determine what “It happened. The police chief on site is someone who wants to know the truth. We have regular discussions with him, he doesn’t give up.”
The Reims Public Prosecutor’s Office seized by the family of Françoise Boutteaux
Frédéric Gille continues: “For the moment, we are therefore in an accident, because the elements in our possession suggest an accident. We are on this line until proven otherwise and I hope that I am not mistaken. It’s disturbing, that’s for sure, but it can happen in the mountains. An accident, an accident, a person who falls and takes another away, it’s more likely than some of the convoluted reasoning that I’ve read. .”
Those close to Marie-Pierre Arfel do not necessarily believe in the theory of the accident as explained this article from our colleagues at France Bleu Provence.
Like the Draguignan public prosecutor’s office, that of Reims was seized by those close to Françoise Boutteaux. A telephone meeting with the Public Prosecutor François Schneider is planned for Monday, July 1. “In the back of my mind, I tell myself that I will see my mother alive againconcludes Frédéric Gille. But the Cartesian that I am has difficulty resolving to anything other than that she is no longer alive.”
