The mother and stepfather of the missing teenager Megan Stammers have made an emotional appeal for her to come home.
Speaking at a press conference, the 15-year-old's mother, Danielle Wilson, said: "Sweetheart, I don't care what you've done, or why. I just want you home."
Megan's stepfather, Martin Stammers, added: "I just want you to come home safe and well."
The schoolgirl is believed to be in France with her teacher, 30-year-old Jeremy Forrest.
The pair travelled out on a ferry together on Thursday evening and were due to return to the UK on Sunday but did not use their tickets.
Forrest is a maths teacher at the school Megan attends, Bishop Bell CofE school in Eastbourne, East Sussex.
The alarm was raised at midday on Friday after Megan failed to turn up for school.
Chief Inspector Jason Tingley, from Sussex police, said: "We believe that you left of your own accord with Jeremy but we need to hear that you are OK. Your family and friends are extremely worried, but you are not in any trouble.
"My message to Mr Forrest is that this may not have gone as you expected it to. Right now, our priority is to know that Megan is safe, and I would ask you to do the right thing and make contact with us.
"We will work with you to get you both safely back into the country."
Wilson and Stammers both said Megan's disappearance was out of character for the teenager.
"She is always in at 7pm, she is not one of these kids to roam the streets, she doesn't go out drinking or anything like that. She doesn't like the dark so she had never been out after dark," Wilson said.
She added: "It is completely out of character. This is not her. She is not like this."
Stammers said Megan had sent him a text message last Tuesday asking to meet him. He arranged to meet her on Saturday but she did not keep the date as she and Forrest are believed to have already left for France.
"We had a date on Saturday, we didn't make it. Babes, that offer's still there sweetheart," he said.
"[I] just want you to come home safe and well, babes please."
Describing her as "everything you would want in a daughter", he added: "We are a family unit working together, strength is coming from within all of us, as a family, our close friends [are] striving so hard.
"I would like to thank the people supporting us out there on the social networks, Twitter, Facebook. Please keep posting, keep tweeting, please keep retweeting."
With her voice breaking, Megan's mother said: "Please darling, just do anything – text me, ring me, send me a message. I've sent you a message on Facebook, just do anything. The phone number hasn't changed at home, just ring, please sweetheart."
She said the 15-year-old could be "very childlike" and was "affectionate and loving" and had "never brought any trouble to my door".
The last thing Megan said before she disappeared was: "I love you."
Wilson said: "She was really happy, jumping around. She grabbed my shoulders and she said to me: 'Mum, can you look me in the eye?' And I said to her, because she was fussing: 'Please stop, get off me now.'
"And she said: 'No Mum, look me in the eye,' and I looked her in the eye and I had to kind of look up to her a bit and she said: 'I love you.'"
Tingley appealed for any members of the public who see the couple or Forrest's black Ford Fiesta, registration GJ08 RJO, to contact French or British police.
Wilson said: "She is a typical girl. She is very, very girly. She likes her makeup. She likes her hair. She loves nicking my combs and things like that."
She described Megan as intelligent, adding: "But then she can be very childlike. She strokes my head and tells me I am cute.
"She is affectionate, she is loving. She is just so lovely and cute and caring.
"She has never brought trouble to my door."
Appeals for help in tracing Megan have continued to be posted on Twitter and Facebook, including by her sister Brooke.
She tweeted: "Keeping hope that we'll have good news soon. Need our meg home safe and sound #keepfaith #findmeganstammers."
East Sussex county council and Bishop Bell CofE school said they had begun an investigation and were working closely with the police.
Terry Boatwright, the school's executive headteacher, said: "The whole school community is deeply concerned for Megan and shocked by what has happened.
"The thoughts and prayers of us all are with Megan and her family at this time.
"We would urge her to get in touch with her family to let them know she is OK and we would echo the police's call for anyone with information to contact them."
