Floral shirt, tattoo on his arms and gel in his hair, Stephen Bouchet, 36, did not hesitate: “To be honest, I was in my swimming pool yesterday at the end of the afternoon with a chain of continuous news in the background when I heard the search for the disappearance of little Emile. I said to myself: ”there is no hesitation, we have to go””. Neither one nor two, the young manager of a company in the renewable energy sector called his directors one by one.
The manager, who bought and developed a franchise from the parent company O2Toit four years ago, met his teams at Vernet, a village in Haute-Provence where Emile, a two-year-old boy, disappeared on Friday evening. “Many of my employees are young parents, that counted in my decision”, explains the CEO who employs 62 people. And it’s all of its sales department, around thirty people, who responded. They came from its four offices in the Paca region, from Fréjus, Manosque, Toulon and Cannes.
Having the feeling of “having tried to help”
Like Kevin, 32, who has a three-year-old daughter. “Obviously it touched me and I came,” says this salesman before entering a field of tall grass for one of the unsuccessful drives of the day. He who hoped to “discover at least clues”, returned, like all the other teams made up of some 300 volunteers mobilized, hope at half mast.
Still, the mobilization of his teams did not surprise Stephen. A kind of “team building”, but with a gloomy atmosphere, he who is used to rewarding his teams for the good health of his company. “Last year, we went to Thailand. There, this summer, we’re going for a sailboat ride. It’s normal when things are going well. To get to the village of Vernet, its teams postponed around twenty meetings. And at the end of the afternoon, even if the search was unsuccessful, they at least had the feeling of “having tried to help”.