MEAUX, France — A one-month-old baby taken from a French hospital on Thursday evening, triggering a kidnap alert, has been found safe and well with her mother, officials said on Friday.
The woman had been recognized by a member of the public in a suburb northeast of Paris, and has been taken into custody with her baby at police station there, public prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Bladier told a news conference.
“They both appear to be fine,” he said.
The 21-year-old homeless mother had given birth on December 16 at a hospital in Meaux, east of the capital.
Both she and the baby had been kept there because she had nowhere to go, the baby had breathing difficulties and medical staff had noticed the mother had behaved “brutally” towards the newborn, Bladier said.
Magistrates had issued a temporary welfare placement order for the baby on Wednesday. On Thursday, mother and baby disappeared.
The kidnap alert, triggered on Friday, was cancelled that evening.