Home Alone revisited! French family forgets daughter at motorway stop, drive 150 km

London, Aug 10: Home Alone revisited! In a bizarre incident, a family heading for a holiday in southern France forgot their three-year-old daughter at a motorway picnic area and drove 150 km before realising their absent-mindedness.

The girl was abandoned yesterday at the Bras de Zil rest-stop south of Valence. The family realised their mistake only because of an alert broadcast on the radio.

Image from film Home Alone 2: Courtesy Amazon.com

By the time another family had found her, the girl's parents were already well on their way to their destination. The girl was apparently left at around midday near Loriol, at a picnic stop beside the A7 motorway known as the "autoroute du soleil" (motorway of the sun), BBC reported.

The family who found her waited some time for her parents to return, but then alerted local police. The girl told officers she was on her way to the beach, had a brother and sister and had seen her dad's car drive off.

It was not until police broadcast an appeal on a motorway radio channel that her father contacted them at around three o'clock. The family had already driven past Aix-en-Provence on their way south, about 150 km from where they had left their daughter.

The family was eventually reunited more than two hours later. Prosecutors were considering whether to take action against the parents.

The incident is reminiscent of the movie Home Alone in which a boy is mistakenly left behind at home when his family flies to Paris for their Christmas vacation. In this case, however, the girl was not left at home but at a public place.

PTI