Versailles (AFP)

Several people, including former CEO Jean-Louis Baillot, appealed against their conviction during the Ikea France trial for spying on hundreds of employees, we learned from the Versailles prosecutor's office on Tuesday.

At first instance on June 15, and at the end of sometimes heated debates, the French subsidiary of the furniture giant and Mr. Baillot were respectively sentenced to a million euros fine and two years in prison with stay and a 50,000 euro fine.

Jean-Louis Baillot appealed against the decision which recognized him in particular guilty of "concealment of collection of personal data by a fraudulent means", for facts mainly committed around the years 2009-2012.

His successor, Stefan Vanoverbeke (2010-2015), had been released as requested by the prosecutor, noting that there was no "material element" to incriminate him.

Other people also appealed, including the then administrative and financial director, Dariusz Rychert, as well as the former deputy director Sylvie Weber, both sentenced to a one-year suspended prison sentence and 10,000 euros in prison. 'fine, continued the parquet floor of Versailles.

Jean-Pierre Fourès, who ran the private investigation company called upon by the former "Mr. Security" of Ikea France to obtain confidential information and who was sentenced to two years in prison with a suspended sentence of 20,000 euros, also challenges the decision.

A store manager and the former director of human resources also appealed against their conviction.

Ikea France appeared from March 2021 alongside fifteen defendants, former company executives, store managers, police officers - including three sentenced to six months in prison - and the boss of the investigative company private.

The court's decision elicited mixed reactions from some 120 civil parties, including many unions.

Some were delighted that these sentences "show that employers cannot do everything in France", like the former Force Ouvrière (FO) delegate Adel Amara, others considered them insufficient.

The court had also forced Ikea France to compensate them with damages of between 1,000 and 10,000 euros for each of them.

In this vast case qualified as espionage by the press and then investigated from 2012, Ikea France and its managers at the time were accused of having illegally inquired about the criminal record, lifestyle or heritage of certain employees via the company "in business consulting" Eirpace, which would have drawn this confidential data in police files.

© 2021 AFP