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A manhunt is underway after the body of an 11-year-old girl was found with stab wounds in a forest in France.
Louise Lasalle vanished while on her way home from school in Essonne, northern France, shortly before 2pm on Friday, police believe. Her parents raised the alarm when she didn’t return home from André-Maurois middle school in the town of Épinay-sur-Org.
Police have now opened a murder investigation after her body was found overnight between Friday and Saturday in the Bois des Templiers woodlands.
More than 120 national police officers were dispatched alongside horses, drones, dogs and a helicopter over the weekend, to comb through the three hectares of forest near where the schoolgirl’s body was found, BFMTV reported.
Devastated classmates have paid tribute to Louise, with one girl telling TF1 that she was “funny, intelligent and she loved her friends, she was everything to us”.
Louise was last spotted on a pedestrian crossing at the