Moral harassment at France Telecom: former leaders tried on appeal

Europe 1 with AFP 3:01 p.m., May 9, 2022, modified at 3:02 p.m., May 9, 2022

The former leaders of France Telecom, including ex-CEO Didier Lombard, are on trial from Wednesday before the Paris Court of Appeal, more than two years after their unprecedented conviction for moral harassment following a series of employee suicides.

At first instance, Didier Lombard and the former number 2 of the Louis-Pierre Wenès group had been sentenced to one year in prison, including eight months suspended, and a fine of 15,000 euros.

The court had noted their "preeminent role" in the establishment of a "hard-line" downsizing policy over the period 2007-2008.

Until July 1, they will appear before the Court of Appeal with four other former managers of the company, sanctioned by four months in prison suspended and a 5,000 euro fine at first instance, for complicity in moral harassment.

The first CAC 40 company condemned for institutional "moral harassment", France Telecom, which at the end of the 2000s became the symbol of suffering at work, did not appeal the judgment of first instance which had sanctioned it with the maximum fine, 75,000 euros.

19 suicides

His ex-HRD Olivier Barberot, sentenced to one year in prison, including eight months suspended, and a fine of 15,000 euros, finally withdrew from the appeal initially lodged.

In its judgment, the criminal court had insisted on the extent of the moral harassment which spread from the top to the whole of the France Telecom group, noting that it had "targeted several tens of thousands" of people, according to the judgment of first instance.

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He had also noted the absence of a direct link between the perpetrators and the victims, unlike classic moral harassment.

All the defendants had also been ordered to jointly pay more than 3 million euros in damages to the civil parties, former employees and families of victims.

The court had examined in detail the cases of 39 employees: 19 had committed suicide, 12 had attempted to do so and 8 had experienced an episode of depression or a work stoppage.

"The window or the door"

Among these victims, Michel Deparis.

While France Telecom - which became Orange in 2013 - made headlines due to suicides among its employees, this Marseille technician ended his life in July 2009 by criticizing "management by terror" in a letter.

"I am committing suicide because of France Telecom. This is the only cause," he wrote.

Two months later, a first complaint was filed by the South union.

During 2006, the management of France Telecom, privatized two years earlier, implemented a policy of massive deflation of the workforce aimed at transforming the company of 100,000 employees.

22,000 departures and 10,000 transfers are targeted in these NExT and Act plans, planned from 2007 to 2010, the period to which the trial relates.

In the first instance, the defendants had been released on the facts after 2008. Still in 2006, Didier Lombard, CEO from 2005 to 2010, told the executives that these departures must be made "through the window or through the door".

At the hearing, the defendants spoke of voluntary departures.

A "simple display", estimated the court, for whom the management, alerted to the "inaccessible" nature of the objective of 22,000 departures, made the choice "of a forced march policy" using means " prohibited".

“A concerted plan to degrade working conditions”

Forced functional or geographic changes, pay cuts, repeated emails encouraging people to leave: the three former managers have drawn up "a company policy resulting from a concerted plan to degrade the working conditions of France Telecom agents in order to accelerate their final departures from the company".

According to the judgment, they put "pressure on management" which "reflected this pressure" throughout the company, "creating an anxiety-provoking climate in the daily lives of all agents".

Solicited by AFP, Didier Lombard's lawyer, Me Jean Veil, did not wish to speak before the hearing.

For his part, Louis-Pierre Wenès "intends to challenge the judgment rendered (in the first instance) in all its components", indicated his counsel, Me Sylvain Cornon.