He did not say he felt any resentment towards those who kidnapped him.
As he turns 18 on Tuesday, Alex Batty spoke to the Mirror about his six years spent wandering.
The young man disappeared while on vacation in Spain with his mother and grandfather in 2017 and was found last December in the middle of the night by a delivery driver while walking along a road near Toulouse.
The teenager lived within itinerant spiritual communities in Morocco, Spain and then France.
He did not suffer physical violence and decided to leave his mother who wanted to go to Finland.
Abducted by his mother at the time, he joined his grandmother in Oldham, in the north-east of Manchester, England.
“It’s good to be back,” he told the Daily Mirror.
I don't miss being in France or Spain much.
None of this was good.
» However, he did not want to decry his mother's actions: “Mom did what she did out of love.
That's what she thought was best, he defended.
She and my grandfather did it with the best intentions.
»
“Not real that I’m back”
According to him, “they certainly won’t take any risks” by trying to contact him.
Besides, he “hopes that the police will not find them”.
“I love them both, but if I don’t see them again, it’s no big deal.
You can love someone without talking to them,” he assured.
He also spoke of the difficult return to a more common life after living in special conditions.
“I've had a hard time talking to people my age again.
I have been around adults since the age of 11, he said.
It's engraved in me.
It still doesn't seem real that I'm back.
I haven't really understood yet."