The Paris prosecutor's office has refused the request of the nephew of Philippe de Dieuleveult to reopen the investigation. The star animator disappeared during an expedition on the Zaire River with six other people in August 1985.
His brother and father had filed a complaint in February 1995 for intentional homicide. He then accused the France of having covered up the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko, then president of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. The children of the animator expressed to AFP their "indignation" after this request.