EXCLUSIVE: French investigators are probing ‘extreme-right background’ of parents of missing Emile Soleil whose father was once arrested for ‘an attack on foreigners’ – as search for two-year-old is ended
- EXCLUSIVE: Emile Soleil disappeared from his grandparents’ garden on July 8
- Police have now concluded their search of the local area, having found nothing
The extreme-right wing political background of the parents of missing French boy Émile Soleil is being examined as fears grow for his safety.
It is almost a week since the two-year-old disappeared without trace from Haut-Vernet, an Alpine hamlet south of Grenoble, where he was staying with his grandparents.
No theory has been ruled out by investigators, who have extended their enquiry to other parts of France after a thorough search of the countryside around Vernet yielded nothing.
Now MailOnline has learned that Émile’s father, Colomban Soleil, 26, was arrested for ‘an attack on foreigners’ in 2018.
He appeared before judges in Aix-en-Provence, and was released from custody after pledging to maintain the peace, multiple legal sources confirmed.
It is almost a week since two-year-old Émile Soleil (pictured) disappeared without trace from Haut-Vernet, an Alpine hamlet south of Grenoble
Now MailOnline has learned that Émile’s father, Colomban Soleil (pictured), 26, was arrested for ‘an attack on foreigners’ in 2018
Investigators have extended their enquiry to other parts of France after a thorough search of the countryside around Vernet yielded nothing. Pictured: French gendarmes are briefed before taking part in a search operation
At the time, Mr Soleil was an activist linked to Action Francaise, the notorious far-Right nationalist and royalist group, as well as the neofascist Bastion Social.
Theories behind Émile Soleil’s disappearance
ACCIDENT: Did Émile wander off on to a road, before a collision with a car or tractor which killed or wounded him? Police found traces of blood on the front of a vehicle on Wednesday, but it turned out to belong to an animal.
KIDNAP: Did somebody put Émile in a vehicle and take him far away from Haut-Vernet? Police have confirmed they are exploiting phone technology to track the movement of locals. So-called ‘triangulation’ was sanctioned following fears that someone may have abducted Émile from the hamlet, which is made up of only 20 houses with 25 permanent residents.
AN OUTSIDER: Could someone have quickly got in and out of the hamlet, before disappearing with Émile, without being seen? One investigator confirmed that ‘the records of all known child sex offenders in the area are being examined’.
A LONELY WALK: Did Émile manage to walk into thick countryside, before falling asleep in undergrowth? Investigators do not believe the two-year-old would have got very far, and that he would have been found during the extensive search of nearby fields and woods lasting four days.
WILD ANIMAL: Was the little boy attacked by an animal, such as a wolf, and then dragged away? If yes, there is likely to have been a trace of Émile’s blood or scraps of clothing left behind, but nothing has been found.
Three years later, in 2021, both Mr Soleil and his wife, Marie Soleil, who is also in her 20s, stood as local election candidates in the Marseille area.
They were supporting the Reconquest party of Éric Zemmour, the convicted racist and Islamophobe who tried to become president of France last year.
Their election slogans at the time identified them as ‘friends of Éric Zemmour’ who wanted to ‘clean out the system’.
A source involved in the search for Émile said: ‘You make a lot of enemies when you’re an ally of Eric Zemmour and groups like Action Francaise and Bastion Social.
‘No theory for Émile’s disappearance has been ruled out, so of course this background is being examined. It may be that a kidnap is linked to political enemies.’
Both parents were this week verbally attacked by France’s former Family and Children’s Minister, Ségolène Royal, who confirmed that Mr Soleil had ‘a very worrying profile’.
Ms Royal, herself a mother-of-four, tweeted: ‘The mother questioned only on Tuesday? And the father, with a very worrying profile?
‘So, we did not look at the theory of a problem or family revenge? A kidnapping? Why is the kidnapping alert still not triggered? How sad.’
The countryside search for missing Émile was called off on Wednesday evening, after four days.
Hundreds of gendarmes, police and volunteers had been involved in a vast operation beating fields and bushes, and examining them from the air.
Local prosecutor Rémy Avon said that the ‘physical search’ could go no further, because there was ‘no sign’ of Émile.
But he added: ‘The judicial investigation into the causes of the disappearance will continue, in particular by analysing the considerable mass of information and elements collected over the past four days.’
He said the possibilities that Émile had been murdered, kidnapped, or got involved in an accident were all being looked at.
‘All these theories are active,’ said Mr Avon. ‘Nothing has been ruled out.’
Searches have so far brought together 800 gendarmes, firefighters, volunteers, helicopters, thermic camera drones and sniffer dogs
Gendarmes meticulously search the outskirts of the village of Vernet on July 13, 2023. They have been unable to locate the boy
A gendarme is followed by cameras during his search, as about fifty mobile gendarmes from Gap sift through ‘1.8km of road’ in France on July 13, 2023
He confirmed that Émile’s parents’ home in the southern town of La Bouilladisse, near Marseille, was searched by police on Monday.
The parents had lived in the house for a year, along with Émile and his baby sister, who was born earlier this year.
READ MORE: Heartbreak as search operation for missing French boy Emile is called off after hunt through 97 hectares in Alpine village ‘yielded nothing’: Probe turns to phone records and vehicle inspections
‘They are a very traditional family – high Catholics who prefer the Latin mass to the modern one,’ said another investigating source. ‘The parents are passionate about sacred church music.’
Police also revealed there were at least 10 other family members staying in the Vernet house at the time of Émile’s disappearance.
A police source said: ‘A family reunion was taking place, with several uncles and aunts of the child, of all ages, including some minors. Émile was seen on Saturday morning, along with other children.’
The hamlet was barricaded by police on Tuesday, so preventing anyone new coming in, as phones were confiscated, and houses examined.
Helicopters have broadcast the voice of Émile’s desperate mother across the mountainous region in an attempt to find her missing son ‘who was always chasing butterflies’.
Despite all this, Mr Avon said: ‘At the moment we have no clue, no information, no element that can help us understand this disappearance’.
Mr Avon made it clear that, as the enquiry continues, ‘nobody is above suspicion’
The saga evokes the BBC series, The Missing, in which a young boy vanishes whilst on holiday with his family in France, only to be killed in a hit-and-run accident after chasing a fox.
Émile’s family are devout Catholics, and have called on people to pray to Benoîte Rencurel – a French shepherd said to have seen apparitions of the Virgin Mary from 1664 to 1718.
A walker passes in front of gendarmes who are resting for a few moments before continuing the raking on July 13
Volunteers take part in a search operation for two-and-a-half-year-old Emile last seen on July 8
Two gendarmes meticulously search the surroundings of a house for the young boy who has vanished
The police have released a photo and description of Emile, who is almost 3ft tall, with brown eyes, and blond hair.
He was wearing a yellow top, white shorts with a green pattern, and hiking shoes at the time of his disappearance.
Residents of Vernet have meanwhile been referring to the place as a cursed ‘village of the damned’ because of its links with disaster.
In March 2015, Vernet was also cordoned off following a horrific air crash in which 150 people died, including two babies.
Germanwings Airbus A320 was deliberately brought down by co-pilot Andres Lubitz, who had previously been treated for suicidal tendencies.
Many Vernet residents took part in high mountain searches for possible survivors at the time.
They also opened their homes to family and friends of those who perished in the disaster.
The inhabitants of Vernet were also shaken by the murder of a local café manager in the village 15 years ago.
Jeannette Grosos, who ran the Café du Moulin, was brutally killed by a customer in 2008.
Mayor François Balique said: ‘It was a real drama for the whole village – one which it has had a hard time recovering.’
One resident of Vernat said on Wednesday: ‘Everybody is saying it – Vernet feels like a village of the damned.’
The kind of phone tracing methods now being deployed by the police in Vernet helped snare the killers of British peer Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the 10th Earl of Shaftesbury, in nearby countryside in 2005.
He went missing in France in November 2004, before his lifeless body was found at the bottom of a ravine in the foothills of the Alps, near Cannes.
Phone triangulation later placed his estranged wife, Jamila M’Barek, and her brother, Mohamed M’Barek, in the area, and both were later convicted of Lord Shaftesbury’s murder.
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