Appeal launched to identify ‘Frenchman’ found dead in England

'The key to this mystery lies in France' - according to the international organisation which has launched an appeal to finally identify a man found dead in England six years ago.

Published: 1 December 2023 10:44 CET

Appeal launched to identify 'Frenchman' found dead in England

A computer-generated image of what the unidentified man is believed to have looked like. Image: Locate International

His body was found at an isolated farm in England in 2017 and he has never been identified – but now new scientific tests reveal that that man spent his childhood in France, and is also believed to have spent some time in Switzerland.

The skeletal remains of the man were found in a barn in Hampshire, southern England, in December 2017 – he had no form of ID and medical examiners could only determine that he was aged between 35 and 50 and was 175cm (5ft 7ins) tall.

Le 1er décembre 2017, le corps d'un homme était retrouvé dans une grange isolée dans le sud de l'Angleterre. Il aurait entre 35 et 50 et a été retrouvé avec plusieurs objets.
En savoir plus ici: https://t.co/gypYsiEJIG #LHommeDansLaGrange pic.twitter.com/gmLwdfRZ7q

— Locate International (@LocateCIO) December 1, 2023

He remained unidentified, but now the UK-based missing persons charity Locate International has commissioned extra DNA testing which reveals that the man spent his childhood in France – analysis reveals that until the age of 12 he lived in south-east France, Corsica and Switzerland.

Inquiries in 2019 with a computer-generated image of what the man would have looked like produced several witnesses who said they had seen him sleeping rough in the area around Hampshire where his body was found.

Witnesses said he spoke with a “strong French accent” and told people that he had previously served in the French military and was deaf in one ear from an explosion.

Anyone with any information can contact Locate International on 0300 102 1011 or by email at [email protected] – information can be left anonymously.

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Police intervened as dozens of students gathered on a central Paris campus of the prestigious Sciences Po university on Wednesday evening, management said.

“After discussions with management, most of them agreed to leave the premises,” university officials said in a statement to AFP, saying the protest was adding to “tensions” at the university.

But “a small group of students” refused to leave and “it was decided that the police would evacuate the site,” the statement added.

Sciences Po said it regretted that “numerous attempts” to have the students leave the premises peacefully had led nowhere.

According to the police préfecture, students had set up around 10 tents.

When members of law enforcement arrived, “50 students left on their own, 70 were evacuated calmly from 0.20am” and the police “left at 1.30am, with no incidents to report,” the police said.

The protesters demanded that Sciences Po “cut its ties with universities and companies that are complicit in the genocide in Gaza” and “end the repression of pro-Palestinian voices on campus,” according to witnesses.

The protest was organised by the Palestine Committee of Sciences Po.

In a statement on Thursday, the group said its activists had been “carried out of the school by more than fifty members of the security forces,” adding that “around a hundred” police officers were “also waiting for them outside”.

Sciences Po management “stubbornly refuses to engage in genuine dialogue,” the group said.

The organisers have called for “a clear condemnation of Israel’s actions by Sciences Po” and a commemorative event “in memory of the innocent people killed by Israel,” among other demands.

Separately, the Student Union of Sciences Po Paris said the decision by university officials to call in the police was “both shocking and deeply worrying” and reflected “an unprecedented authoritarian turn”.

Many top US universities have been rocked by protests in recent weeks, with some students furious over the Israel-Hamas war and ensuing humanitarian crisis in the besieged Palestinian territory of Gaza.

France is home to the world’s largest Jewish population after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s biggest Muslim community.

The war in Gaza began with an unprecedented attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel on October 7th that resulted in the deaths of around 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

In retaliation, Israel launched a military offensive that has killed at least 34,305 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.