France gripped by mystery of family missing for two weeks

FRANCE has been transfixed by the disappearance of an entire family who left behind a blood-stained cell phone, stripped beds and a home “frozen in time”.

The mystery of the Troadec family deepened yesterday when a jogger alerted police after stumbling across the trousers and national health card of the daughter in woods some 200 miles from their home.

The family went missing from their home in a suburb of the western city of Nantes two weeks ago.

The Troadecs – Pascal and Brigitte, both aged around 50, their son Sebastien, 21, and his sister Charlotte, 18 – have not been seen since Feb 16.

An inquiry has been opened into murder, abduction and illegal confinement in a case that bears eerie similarities to the disappearance of another family in the area six years ago in the same area.

A mother and four children were found buried beneath their porch in 2011, less than three miles from the Troadec home. The father, Xavier Dupont de Ligonnes, remains at large and is the suspect of an international arrest warrant.

The eldest of his children was a student at the same school as Sebastien, according to local reports.

A nationwide police bulletin on the family said initial suspicion had fallen on Sebastien, “suspected of having a deadly plan to kill the members of his family and perhaps himself ”.

The Nantes prosecutor’s office said in a statement that it was “premature to nominate persons who could be considered suspicious.”

Classmates described the youth as “always ready to help out”.

Both children had been at the family home during the school holidays, which ended in recent days.