While the prosecution of Digne-les-Bains announced Tuesday the opening of a judicial investigation, the population of Vernet, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, is trying to regain the serenity of yesteryear, more than ten days after the disappearance of little Emile, aged 2 and a half.
The window of the billboard planted in the heart of the town of Vernet (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) opens with a squeak. A woman has just hung a new document on it, right next to the school transport schedules for the start of the school year. “I don’t want to be filmed”, she asserts, without deviating from her mission. It’s 10 a.m., Tuesday, July 18. The bells of the Saint-Marthe church resound throughout the valley and the decision of the city councilor is now displayed in black and white: until July 31, midnight, anyone outside the city walls will no longer be able to access Haut-Vernet. Emile, 2 and a half years old, was seen in this hamlet of around twenty houses for the last time on Saturday July 8, before vanishing into the dense Provençal nature. “The pain is so strong for the inhabitants and the family, they need calm and rest”, justifies the mayor, François Balique. On the same day of Tuesday, the prosecution of Digne-les-Bains announced the opening of a judicial investigation, entrusted to two investigating judges of the judicial court of Aix-en-Provence.
“Now there are them, and then there is us: we are cut in two”, deplores a resident of Vernet, where most of the hundred inhabitants of the town encompassing the hamlet reside. After some hesitation, and despite the prohibition, Gerald crosses the iron gate installed at the beginning of a sloping road, just before a small stream. In the back of his car, a bouquet of white flowers. Coming from Martigues (Bouches-du-Rhône), this former retired policeman has traveled nearly 180 kilometers, and endured a few tough turns of which the department has the secret, to deliver it personally to the grandparents by Emilethat he knows neither Eve nor Adam, “as a sign of support”. Without success. The flowers end their journey in the hands of the gendarmes responsible for ensuring the proper application of the municipal decree, in this fortress-like hamlet.
“I don’t want to talk anymore”
At regular intervals, large cars, designed to withstand the surrounding hills and the thick snow that covers the roads in winter, descend from Haut-Vernet and cross the town. Their engines then interrupt, for a moment, the silence who reigns fromince the departure of the teams of investigators and the volunteers who came to lend a hand. Helicopters and drones, which intervened after Emile’s disappearance, ceased their operations. The frenzied discussions waned as hopes of finding the child healthy waned. So everyone was walled in silence.
“When I see journalists, I avoid them. I don’t want to talk anymore.”
Jean*, resident of Vernetat franceinfo
Jean lives in one of the few houses with shutters open in mid-July: the majority of the houses have become, over the years, second homes for city dwellers in need of nature. Like almost all Vernetois, the retiree mobilized from the first day of the disappearance “little one” to participate in the hunts, in a great effervescence. On the fourth day, the volunteers were asked to stop all activity and go back to their business: the investigation is now focusing on the analysis of the data collected. “I encouraged everyone to resume normal activity,” confirms the mayor. It was then necessary to wait and fill these long summer days, weighed down by an unusual heat at 1,200 meters above sea level. “We play boules [de pétanque]we do work at home… We get out of the story as best we can and we try to forget, while waiting to find out more”, he lets go.
An “oppressive” climate
This new and forced peace of mind is a blessing for Jeanne*, who has been spending restless nights since the disappearance of the little boy. “There were Spanish journalists, Germans from everywhere (…) but things are starting to return to normal, to calm down”, salute this longtime friend of the family of little Emile, owner for twenty years of the holiday home around which the disappearance was played out. She describes the child as “dynamic” And “very cute”. “He speaks very well. It must be said that he is constantly in contact with the greats, so he wants to do the same”, she smiled, tearing the dried petals from her purple-robed roses. Suddenly, this hand that seemed assured rests feverishly on her mouth to stifle a sob:“I’m sorry, I can’t talk about it anymore, it shakes me up too much.”
Charlotte*, meanwhile, would like to put an end to the silence that has gradually settled in the town. This fifty-something who knows “A little” Emile’s family, met during events in the village and described by all as “very discreet” And “pious”, asks only to reconnect with the word. “It’s the little secrets that lead to the big ones” she unfolds. It testifies to a climateoppressive” and one “tension” in the camera that has been played out in the village since the drama of July 8. “Perhaps there are people who know things and say nothing”, she begins to imagine.
A bruised community
A silence all the heavier as it mingles with the traumatic resurgences of previous tragedies in the region. In 2008, Jeannette Grosos, manager of the Café des Moulins, on the departmental road that runs along the Vernet, was killed by an unbalanced man. More than seven years later, on March 24, 2015, a few kilometers away, the Germanwings Airbus A320 crashed into the side of a cliff, killing 149 people as well as the pilot who caused the crash. At the time, several residents had lent a hand to the authorities. Bernard, 69, led the families of the victims near the scene of the tragedy to allow them to gather. In gratitude, the airline offered, to a part of the village, including him, tickets for the France-Germany football match. It is November 13, 2015 and the Vernetois are in the stands when a jihadist blowing himself up near the Stade de France. “To be afraid, I was afraid”, confirms Bernard modestly. No inhabitant of the village was injured during the attacks in the capital that night.
“The planes are falling in our house, the killers are killing in our house, and now the children are disappearing: what are people going to say about us?”
Bernard, inhabitant of Vernetat franceinfo
At the bistro in the center of the village, the questions abound. Rapt? Car accident ? Everyone has their own theory about the child’s disappearance. “But the truth is that we don’t know anything, we have no information. We don’t even know if we too will be questioned”, blows a resident of Vernet, while the investigations were mainly confined to the hamlet above. Investigations that did not allow “to determine the causes” of the disappearance of Emile, according to the press release from the Digne-les-Bains prosecutor released on Tuesday. In the blur, the inhabitants are condemned to the calculations formulated on the terrace of the bar. Suddenly a murmur grows: a gray car crosses the square, without stopping. Regulars and journalists at the table unscrew their necks and tilt their chairs to try to distinguish the passenger compartment. Inside, Emile’s relatives. Windows closed and eyes fixed on the road, the family, more than anyone else in the village, has taken a vow of silence since the disappearance of the little boy.
* The first names have been changed at the request of the interested parties.