PARIS — The family of a French backpacker who went missing in Egypt nearly a year ago used the Egyptian president’s visit to Paris on Friday to press for an investigation into the 27-year-old traveler’s disappearance.
Family members and friends raised placards asking, “Where is Yann Bourdon, President Sissi?” — hoping to catch the eye of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi before his meeting with French President Emmaunel Macron. But French police scooped them up from a sidewalk and led them away for identity checks before el-Sissi’s motorcade zoomed past.
Macron’s office wouldn’t say if the French leader spoke specifically about Bourdon to el-Sissi. But it said Macron raises individual cases in his dealings with the Egyptian president.
Bourdon’s family and friends haven’t heard from him since August 2021. His last email to his sister was casual, positive, like others the French graduate student sent on his yearlong backpacking journey. He wrote from Cairo: “I’ll get back to you soon. Give everyone a hug from me. Let me know how Grandpa’s doing.”
Nearly a year later, they’re desperate for news and any sign his disappearance is being investigated. Bourdon’s sister and mother said they decided to go public about the case after meeting months of silence or stonewalling from Egyptian authorities.
France’s Foreign Ministry says it’s well-versed in the dossier, and in touch with Egyptian authorities. The Egyptian Embassy in Paris didn’t respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry and a government media officer also did not respond to requests for comment.
Bourdon’s mother, Isabel Leclercq, described her “great anguish and great fear that something is happening to him and we can’t help him.”
“It’s a total vacuum for us,” Wendy Bourdon, the missing man’s sister, said.
The only clue so far came from a French police investigation into Yann’s bank account, according to his sister: It was emptied soon after his last email to his family, from a Cairo cash machine.
His mother describes Yann as “a very social boy” who studied history at the Sorbonne and spoke four languages. She said he left on his journey in July 2020 “because he wanted to meet other peoples, other civilizations.”
Passionate about museums, reading and learning, he told his family about sharing a meal with Bedouins who let him pitch his tent next to theirs. “That really brought him pleasure,” his sister said.
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