Missing French toddler – latest: Final search ends as police comb through existing evidence in hunt for Emile

500 volunteers helped with the search for two-year-old Emile, who has been missing since Saturday.

Two-year-old Emile was last seen playing in the garden of a property in Le Vernet in the Alpes-de-Haute department of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, with his grandparents notifying the police of his disappearance at around 5.15pm local time on Saturday.

“At this point, we don’t have any clues allowing us to follow any particular theory (on his whereabouts)”, the local prosecutor told Franceinfo Radio earlier this week.

Meanwhile, a volunteer named Roxanne told the AFP news agency on Monday: “We took part in a big search this morning with 50 other people.

“There was a gap of two metres (7 feet) between each of us, we looked in the fields, and in the woods.

“We looked out for the smallest clue, maybe an item of clothing or a shoe he could have lost.”

The dedicated hotline has received 1,200 calls, with 30 buildings searched, 25 people interviewed, 12 vehicles searched and 12 hectares raked.

Closed to the public since Tuesday, Le Vernet is expected to remain so for a few days.

The existing decree – in place since Tuesday – will likely be renewed over the weekend to “protect families and channel any tourism of curiosity”, mayor François Balique told AFP.

“Until we know the truth, it will be tense. It’s hard on the family, this uncertainty is awful. And the people of the village need to know what happened.”

Émile, aged two-and-a-half, was playing in the garden of his grandparent’s house when he vanished on Saturday afternoon. A desperate hunt –involving helicopters, drones, and sniffer dogs – has been taking place to try and find the missing toddler.

A dedicated hotline number has received over 1,200 phone calls, but police still have “no clue” about Émile’s whereabouts as fears for his safety intensify on the fifth day since he went missing.

Le Vernet has been the site of a gruesome killing and devastating plane crash in the last 15 years, Matt Drake and Maanya Sachdeva report:

French police searching for a two-year-old boy who went missing from his grandparents’ garden in the French Alps on Saturday said on Tuesday they had no clues as to what could have happened to him.

The boy, Emile, was last seen walking down the street of his grandparents’ house – located in a remote mountain outpost with only two dozen inhabitants – by two witnesses on Saturday afternoon, a prosecutor said.

On Thursday, local prosecutor Remy Avon said the previous searches did not yield any clues to solving the mystery of the boy’s disappearance and instead, investigators will be shifting their focus to evaluating evidence already gathered.

He added: “The investigation into the causes of his disappearance will continue, notably through analysis of the considerable amount of information and elements gathered over four days.”

He added: “The investigation into the causes of his disappearance will continue, notably through analysis of the considerable amount of information and elements gathered over four days.”

Since 8am on Thursday morning, gendarmes had been carrying out final searches of the Alpine village of Le Vernet where the two-year-old went missing last Saturday, focusing on a 1.8km-long road.

With 97 hectares swept across three days, the physical search will not resume tomorrow unless the investigation uncovers any significant leads that necessitate it.

A local mayor has reflected on the decades-old case of a 3-year-old that went missing in Ganagobie, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence in 1989.

“It reminds us of a lot of things. I sent a little message of support to the mayor of Vernet, François Balique”, Ganagobie mayor Sylvie Belmonte told La Provence, referencing the disappearance of 3-year-old Yannis Moré in May 1989.

“I was town clerk and I took part in the search to try to find little Yannis”, he added.

Yannis had disappeared whilst playing with his three brothers, prompting a search of one hundred gendarmes, soldiers, firefighters and volunteers. However, there were no witnesses, no clues and no suspect.

“We had been settled in Ganagobie for 18 months… I saw them having fun from the window”, Yannis’s mother, Pascaline Moré, told La Provence in 2016. “We give ourselves hope”, she added.

A close family member has spoken of the close-knit family missing two-year-old Emile comes from.

“They always do everything together”, a close family member told La Provence, adding that Emile’s mother is the eldest of ten siblings.

“You know, when you have enough children to form two teams to play ball, there is no need to mix.”

Jean-Marcel, a friend of the grandparents of the missing toddler, said the child could not have “evaporated” from the hamlet, which is used to seeing children playing freely in the street.

“On Saturday night I heard the news on the phone and said to myself that they will find the boy,” the man, a resident of Haut-Vernet, told local network BFM DICI.

“Then afterwards, when 24 hours, 48 ​​hours passed and you realise that a two-and-a-half-year-old can’t evaporate like that, it’s a big worry.”

Two-year-old Emile went missing in Le Vernet, a small mountain village in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department and the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur in southeastern France.

It has a population of approximately 100.

Émile, aged two-and-a-half, was playing in the garden of his grandparent’s house when he vanished on Saturday afternoon. A desperate hunt –involving helicopters, drones, and sniffer dogs – has been taking place to try and find the missing toddler.