Priceless violin found after plea

A VIRTUOSO musician has been reunited with his priceless instrument after he accidentally left it in one of the capitals Autolib’s.

Gilles Henry, the lead violinist of the Orchestre de Paris, phoned the Autolib company every half hour after realising he had left the instrument in the point-to-point electric cars which can be hired from the streets in Paris.

“When I realised that I had left it in the Autolib’, I was distraught,” he told Europe 1, “I was like an orphan.”

When his calls went without success he mounted a campaign on social media to try and track it down, gaining the attention of the Prime Minister Manuel Valls whose wife is also a violinist and friend of Mr Henry.

The 60-year-old contacted the webmaster of the Orchestra’s Facebook page and set up an appeal to find the violin - a Lorenzo Storioni made by a student of Stradivarius in 1785 that he had owned for 30 years.

The page was shared nearly 5,000 times and the PM Manuel Valls texted his wife to say they would “push the boat out” to find the violin.

However, in a matter of hours the violin was discovered by one of the cleaners working in a garage for the Autolib’ group who returned it.