CEO, but not responsible.

This is the line of defense held by Didier Lombard, ex-CEO of France Telecom, alongside his former number 2 Louis-Pierre Wenès, in the appeal trial concerning the wave of suicides that the company had experienced. between 2007 and 2010. The former boss, from 2005 to 2010, even said that he “knows nothing about HR” to clear himself of the impact of the social plan he had put in place.

At first instance in 2019, the court noted their "preeminent role" in the implementation of a "hard-line" downsizing policy over the period 2007-2008, using "prohibited means ".

He sentenced Didier Lombard and Louis-Pierre Wenès for institutional moral harassment to one year in prison, including eight months suspended, and a fine of 15,000 euros.

“I am not inhuman”

Friday, before the Paris Court of Appeal, they took refuge behind their high office, which they said kept them away from human resources policy, devolved by the former HRD Olivier Barberot, absent.

Sentenced to the same penalty and fine, he withdrew the appeal lodged.

To this "high-flying HRD", Didier Lombard gave "no precise instructions" on the implementation of the two plans providing for the departure of 22,000 civil servants and the mobility of 10,000 others, to face competition and transformations technology of the company, privatized in 2004.

That is 32,000 people concerned in all.

The objective, according to the ex-CEO, was only to accompany the candidates at the start, not to "force" employees to leave by degrading their working conditions.

"I'm not inhuman," he said, scratching the corner of his eye.

“But some people have been?

asks President Pascaline Chamboncel-Saligue.

“There have been incidents in the provinces, as the 39 files” of employees studied by the court have clearly shown.

The one who threatened to make employees leave “through the door or the window”

Nineteen committed suicide, 12 attempted to do so and 8 experienced an episode of depression or lost work during the period 2007-2010.

"I do not exclude that locally, some officials have had fun" degrading the working conditions of employees and putting pressure on them to leave France Telecom, which became Orange in 2013, evacuates the former boss of 80 year.

This speech annoys Me Jean-Paul Teissonnière: "you are a mystery for the lawyers of the civil parties: you say at the same time "with me, we do not touch the staff" and the one who threatens to make the employees leave "by the door or the window", notes the lawyer, recalling certain remarks made by Didier Lombard in front of executives in 2006. "How do you explain this discrepancy and the violence of this declaration?

“, he insists.

“I have already explained myself on many occasions on this unfortunate expression, including here, so I will not answer this question”, retorts the former CEO.

Local managers implicated

More talkative and combative, Louis-Pierre Wenès also denies any automatic link between the implementation of the plans and the suicides.

They “have multiple causes, work is one of them” but “I don't know if work is the triggering cause”.

The former number 2 of the group, 73, refutes any "general malaise" and prefers to speak of "special cases not treated correctly", and he "regrets it", locally, by "managers" and HR managers.

“For it to be a general malaise, would it have had to concern all the staff?

», asks Me Sylvie Topaloff on behalf of the civil parties.

"In any case, a more significant part of the staff than what I saw," replied the defendant.

Like Didier Lombard, he affirms that he did not receive strong warning signals from the unions and the HR department before the summer of 2009, when the crisis broke out in broad daylight.

However, the trade unions had warned the management in July 2007 of the potential social consequences of the restructuring plan and exercised a right of alert.

At the same time, some created the Observatory of stress and forced mobility to document the extent of suffering at work at France Telecom.

Justice

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Suicides at France Telecom: Former leaders sentenced to 4 months in prison, the ex-CEO appeals

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  • Justice

  • France Telecom

  • Suicide

  • Moral harassment

  • Court case