Overview
- Algerian police arrested the 41-year-old partner Monday, a move the Nantes prosecutor said included recovering the couple’s 15-month-old daughter.
- Relandeau, a 31-year-old farmer from Saint‑Étienne‑de‑Montluc, remains missing with no body found as investigators give growing weight to a criminal hypothesis.
- A Nantes judge opened a formal criminal inquiry on April 7 for suspected murder by a partner plus abduction of a minor, a judge-led process in France called an information judiciaire.
- Two associates detained on April 22–23 were charged with criminal conspiracy to prepare a crime plus altering a crime scene, accused of helping drive the suspect to Nantes‑Atlantique airport.
- In the days around her disappearance, Relandeau sought help from a Nantes support group for abuse victims, relatives reported texts from her phone that did not sound like her, and gendarmes later found her handset at home without signs of a struggle.