Moral harassment at France Telecom: reduced sentence on appeal for ex-CEO Didier Lombard

Europe 1 with AFP 10:35 a.m., September 30, 2022

The former CEO of France Telecom Didier Lombard saw his sentence reduced on Friday in Paris, the Court of Appeal sentencing him for institutional moral harassment to one year in prison with full suspension, against four months in prison at first instance .

Didier Lombard, now 80 years old, was fined the same amount of 15,000 euros as that pronounced at first instance in 2019. His number 2 at the material time (2007-2008), Louis-Pierre Wenès, was also sentenced on appeal to one year in prison with a suspended sentence and a fine of 15,000 euros, twelve years after the events marked by a wave of suicides by group employees.

"You will not serve this prison sentence"

"This decision reverses the decision taken at first instance. You will not carry out this prison sentence", indicated the president of the court, Pascaline Chamboncel-Saligue.

"The judgment does not satisfy everyone, the court (...) hopes that both of you can continue on your way and that you will no longer have to deal with justice", she concluded. .

The public prosecutor had requested a year in prison, including a six-month suspended sentence and a 15,000 euro fine for Didier Lombard and Louis-Pierre Wenès, convicted at first instance for their "preeminent role" in the implementation of a policy of downsizing "hard-liners" over the 2007-2008 period at France Telecom.

The two former managers of France Telecom (which became Orange in 2013) faced justice because of the implementation in 2006 of two restructuring plans (from 2007 to 2010) following the privatization of the company (2004 ) and providing for the departure of 22,000 employees and the mobility of 10,000 others (out of some 120,000 employees).

These departures "in forced march" with "prohibited methods" had led to a "degradation of working conditions" of "thousands of employees", some of whom committed suicide.

The crisis erupted in broad daylight after the suicide in July 2009 of Michel Deparis, a Marseille technician who directly implicated France Telecom in a letter.

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France Telecom has become the symbol of suffering at work.

The company, which did not appeal, had been sanctioned with the maximum fine of 75,000 euros in a historic judgment, becoming the first CAC 40 company condemned for institutional "moral harassment".

The ex-HRD Olivier Barberot, sentenced at first instance to one year in prison including eight months suspended and a fine of 15,000 euros, had withdrawn his appeal.