A four-year-old girl has been found alive under the bodies of a suspected British family massacre in a car in the French Alps.

Public prosecutor Eric Maillaud said the child was only discovered when investigators went into the vehicle at the crime scene for a closer inspection, almost eight hours after the massacre.

He said the three victims in the BMW – a man and two women – appeared to be a family of British holidaymakers.

“As soon as the first forensics began we were able to open the vehicle, and it was at that moment we discovered the little girl that nobody had seen, because she hadn’t moved, completely in shock and completely frozen,” he said.

The identity of the male victim – found at the wheel of the car and described as the father of the family, has been “almost certainly” established, the Haute-Savoie prosecutor said.

The two female victims found in the back of the vehicle, believed to be the girl’s mother and grandmother, are yet to be formally identified.

The young survivor, who was hiding under the legs of the mother, was speaking English when she was found.

The family were staying in a caravan in a campsite popular with UK tourists called Saint Jorioz and it is believed neighbours at the campsite alerted police when they appeared to be missing.

The killings took place in a car park in a forested area near the village of Chevaline, near Lake Annecy, a popular tourist destination in the Haute-Savoie region, in eastern France.

An eight-year-old, thought to be the surviving girl’s elder sister, was found near the BMW with gunshot wounds and is in a critical condition in hospital in the city of Grenoble.

Just yards away, the body of a male cyclist also shot dead was discovered. It is thought he inadvertently cycled into the scene of the attack.

The girl was shot at least three times, according to reports quoting police sources.

The four bodies and the BMW were riddled with bullets, the reports added.

A passer-by discovered the dead cyclist and the older girl and alerted authorities at around 4pm (French time).

It is understood that no weapons were found by officers, and dozens of shell casings were found near the BMW – registered to a UK national.

Stephane Bouchet, from local newspaper Le Dauphine Libere, told a witness two miles from the car park saw a car driving very fast away from the scene around the time of the shooting.

Earlier, prosecutor Mr Maillaud said: “There is a crime scene with several dead, and we fortunately see more scenes like this in films than in real life.”

He said post-mortems are due to be carried out on Thursday or Friday.

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