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France's Emergency Alert System Successfully Resolves Child Abduction Case
A 12-year-old girl abducted from her home in Dompierre, Orne, has been found safe and unharmed in Montbert, Loire-Atlantique, approximately 200 kilometers from where she disappeared. The successful recovery occurred on Thursday, September 25, 2025, following the activation of France's national abduction alert system earlier that afternoon. Authorities confirmed the child was located with a 34-year-old male suspect who was immediately taken into custody by gendarmes around 6 p.m.
The abduction alert was triggered at approximately 3 p.m. on Thursday after the girl, identified as Lucie Fontaine, was reported missing from her residence the previous evening around 10:30 p.m. Her mother and stepfather had noticed her absence from their home, while her father separately confirmed during police questioning that he had no knowledge of his daughter's whereabouts. The alert system mobilized law enforcement resources nationwide to locate the missing minor.
Charles Foury, the 34-year-old suspect apprehended with the child, is reportedly a friend of Lucie's father and has prior criminal convictions including domestic violence and offenses against minors under 15 years old, along with repeated death threats. According to judicial authorities from the Caen prosecutor's office, the investigation revealed existing relationships between the minor and her father's friend. Foury has been placed in police custody facing charges of arrest, abduction, and arbitrary detention of a minor under 15 years old.
France's abduction alert system, modeled after the American Amber Alert established in Texas in 1996, has been activated approximately thirty times since its implementation in February 2006. The system has now successfully contributed to the recovery of thirty-six children, including Lucie's case. The prosecutor's office in Argentan confirmed that the widespread dissemination of the alert directly led to locating both the suspect and the minor, demonstrating the effectiveness of the national emergency response mechanism for child protection cases.