Hundreds of mourners bid farewell to French toddler

Around 400 people on Saturday gathered at a famed cathedral in southeastern France to bid farewell to a two-and-a-half year-old boy whose unexplained disappearance in 2023 shocked the country.

Emile Soleil was at the summer home of his grandparents in the Alpine hamlet of Le Haut-Vernet when he vanished in July 2023.

A massive search involving police, soldiers, sniffer dogs, a helicopter and drones failed to find any sign of the boy.

In the spring of 2024, the toddler's skull and teeth were discovered some 1.7 km from the village but the cause of death remains unexplained.

Saturday's ceremony took place in the Basilica of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, a medieval Gothic cathedral which houses relics of

Mary Magdalene, making it Christianity's third most important tomb. Emile's parents, Marie and Colomban Soleil, were in attendance.

A pall-bearer was seen carrying a tiny white coffin containing the toddler's remains into the basilica as his father looked on.
The ceremony was closed to journalists.

"I've been overwhelmed by this whole affair. Who wouldn't be," said one mourner, Edith Le Maître. "I have blond-haired grandchildren like Emile, and sometimes I babysit them," added the woman in her sixties.

On Saturday afternoon, Emile was to be laid to rest in the town of La Bouilladisse where his parents live.

Two neighbours last saw the toddler walking alone on a street in Le Haut-Vernet, 1,200 metres (4,000 feet) up in the Alps on July 8. He was wearing a yellow T-shirt, white shorts and tiny hiking shoes.

Emile's mother and father were absent on the day of his disappearance.

Agence France-Presse