A six-month-old girl, presented as a very premature baby and who was in care on a respirator, was kidnapped late Friday afternoon by her parents, at the Saint-Étienne University Hospital.
Since then, a police operation has been underway on national territory to find her, we learned from the city prosecutor's office.
The child, who was in the pediatric service of the North Hospital, was entrusted to social assistance for children.
She was taken away by her parents of foreign origin, who deceived the vigilance of the staff of the establishment, according to the same source.
“Educational deficiencies identified in his family”
The kidnapping alert was not triggered because the Saint-Etienne prosecutor's office considered that the criteria, in particular that of endangering the child, "were not met".
“An order prohibiting the child from leaving the territory has been taken,” said AFP the deputy public prosecutor of Saint-Étienne, André Merle, who entrusted the departmental security of the Loire with a preliminary investigation for "removal of a child from the authority to which he has been entrusted".
"This little girl is the subject of a temporary placement by a children's judge with the Childhood Social Assistance because of educational deficiencies identified in her family", it was further explained, adding that the 'ASE herself entrusted her to the hospital in view of her state of health.
Several members of the parents' entourage were heard, some of them in police custody, then released, said a source close to the investigation, which reports the mobilization of significant human and technology to find the girl.
