Fifty kilometers northwest of Bordeaux in southwestern France, the small village of Carcans had been living in a state of shock for several days. It was hard to talk to one of the 2,450 inhabitants of this village about the delicate subject of Florian L. and Marie L., a local couple arrested in the port of Algeciras, Andalusia, on December 21. They were about to embark for Morocco in the company of their 5-year-old child, planning to murder him in the desert, according to the Spanish authorities. Since then, "both parents have been imprisoned in Spain and extradition proceedings are underway," said the public prosecutor's office, which added that "the child has been entrusted to Spanish social services following an emergency provisional placement order (...) and his return to France is also being finalized."

On December 19, the Bordeaux public prosecutor's office received a report from a woman "worried about the son of a couple of friends (...) whose father was making delirious remarks and planning to travel to North Africa with his wife and their son to follow some kind of initiation course." A judicial investigation was opened the following day on suspicion of "arrest, abduction, kidnapping or arbitrary detention of a hostage under the age of 15," and a European arrest warrant was issued. On December 30, the Spanish Guardia Civil (police) released a video of the couple's arrest nine days earlier, accompanied by a statement referring to a "wanted couple" who were "traveling with their kidnapped child." The video shows the parents being calmly escorted to a police van.

In their press release, the Spanish police referred to the fact that "according to information transmitted by the French gendarmerie, the couple had a psychiatric history and had told another relative of their intention to travel to the Sahara to sacrifice their son, believing him to be possessed." French investigators, who carried out the initial inquiries, were more circumspect: "We're dealing with a deviant character, we're slipping into a sectarian drift. We don't know anything about it," admitted Commander Cédric Roger, head of the Lesparre-Médoc gendarmerie (southwestern France).

'Their home was an ideal image'

"One of my friends was going to sublet their house from the beginning of January; he knew them well," said a woman in Carcans. "And then, one day, he tells me that their house has been sealed off, and that they're wanted, he doesn't know why. Since he found out, he's been completely shocked. Just like the rest of us."

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