40 years after the murder of little Grégory, the inhabitants of Lépanges-sur-Vologne want to turn the page

As the 40th anniversary of the Grégory affair approaches, the inhabitants of the town of Lépanges-sur-Vologne, in the Vosges, want to erase the mark of this crime perpetrated in 1984, which continues to fascinate visitors.

It was in Lépanges-sur-Vologne that the 4-year-old boy was kidnapped on October 16, 1984, while he was playing in front of his parents’ house. He will be found drowned in Vologne. Forty years later, the 850 inhabitants of the village want to move on. A petition was even launched entitled “Stop Lépanges bashing!”.

Cédric Prévost, at the origin of this petition, is 37 years old. This researcher chairs the village history club and one morning, opening his newspaper, he read the article too many: “At the beginning of the summer, there was the regional daily press which had tourist pages devoted to the villages, and they found nothing better to do than to bring out a cinematographic reference to a cocktail called ‘little Grégory’. At some point, humor still has certain limits, and we also have the right to defend our reputation.”

The cinematographic reference is the film It happened near you, in which the character played by Benoît Poelvoorde invented the “petit Grégory” cocktail. This reference to very dark humor does not go down well with Cédric and, with around fifteen residents, he decided to create a collective to talk about Lépanges in a different way: “Our approach is an approach for our village. There, we are at the bistro, just opposite, you have two hairdressers. You have a tobacconist. You go a little further, you have the bakery. I will stop there. You we have in fact around thirty companies, 17 associations, which means that in fact, in Lépanges, we live very well there.

“For 40 years, there were things that were written about our village that were not true.”

Cédric Prévost, resident of Lépanges-sur-Vologne

at franceinfo

“Our approach is not against the Grégory affair, nor against its media treatment, nor against the victims… We feel this compassioncontinues Cédric Prévost. On the other hand, when the media come on the occasion of anniversaries such as 40 years, our approach is to say: since you want to come to Lépanges, we will take the opposite approach, and we will show you Lépanges-sur-Vologne that we live and that we love. If we were to tell you about the industrial, historical and heritage wealth of the Vologne valley, we would still be talking for hours.”

And precisely because of the horror of this crime, the Vosges have often been caricatured. Almost 80 years old, Danielle still doesn’t accept it: “We talk badly about Lépanges by treating the Lépangeois as backward or I don’t really know what. And that bothers me, this idea that we can instill that we are in a region of people who are not well developed cerebrally. No. There are plenty of very cultured people.”

What this collective of residents denounces is also the morbid tourism in their commune. The best way to see this is to leave the bar-restaurant to go a few hundred meters further, to the Lépanges church, which overlooks the green Vologne valley. And on the parish register, most visitors mention the affair: “Tribute to Grégory, one day the truth will be known”writes Marie, from Finistère; “40 years later, Lépanges and Grégory remain in our hearts”sign Valéry, from the north of France.

“The fact that there are all these remarks in the notebook proves that people do not come to see the churchdeplores Cécile. They come more to see the cemetery. I’m sure the church doesn’t interest them that much.” Cécile is the wife of the former mayor of Lépanges André Claudel (who, traumatized by the affair and the media, no longer wishes to discuss the affair), she regrets that almost no one notices, for example, the statuette of Notre-Dame de l’usine, at the entrance to the church, testimony to the working-class past of Lépanges, or the two hundred-year-old paintings listed as heritage.

Below, it is rather the cemetery which attracts the attention, and the grave of the little boy, although empty. His parents exhumed him 20 years ago, and keep the ashes with them, far from Vologne. That doesn’t stop the curious from coming, like a sort of pilgrimage, which Danielle doesn’t understand: “For me, it’s a bit unhealthy. We see people looking for Grégory’s house and asking us questions: ‘Can you tell us who did this?’ No, we don’t know. We don’t know more than you do. We don’t know anything about anniversaries like the 40th anniversary. , so journalists already came in May to start inspecting.”

“It seems a little morbid to me and it’s not a good way to behave towards the event and towards the village. We all want to know, but somehow, I I’m afraid to know who it is.”

Danielle, resident of Lépanges-sur-Vologne

at franceinfo

Another proof of fed up: five years ago, the current owner of the house where Grégory and his parents lived even shot down a drone with a gunshot. The machine was flying over the house for the filming of the Netflix series dedicated to the case. It must be said that this extraordinary news item continues to fascinate for its mystery. Moreover, 40 years later, the investigation continues.

To mark this sad anniversary, Jean-Marie Villemin, Grégory’s father, participated in a comic strip which comes out Thursday, October 3. “I wonder how we survived.”he writes in the preface, still ignoring the identity of the crow who, with this crime, wanted to do it “to die of sorrow”. One of the Villemin couple’s lawyers, Marie-Christine Chastant-Morand, emphasizes that “Lépanges-sur-Vologne is their life. They have now been in the Paris region for many years, but they cannot forget Lépanges. Their little boy Grégory, before being murdered, lived there for four years.”