35 staffers killed themselves. Will their bosses go to jail?

PARIS: Former top executives at France’s giant telecom company are accused of harassing employees so relentlessly that workers ended up killing themselves. The men wanted to downsize the business by thousands of workers a decade ago. But they couldn’t fire most of them. The workers were state employees — employees for life — and therefore protected.
So the executives resolved to make life so unbearable that the workers would leave, prosecutors say. Instead, at least 35 employees committed suicide, feeling trapped, betrayed and despairing of ever finding new work in France’s immobile labour market. Today the former top executives of France Telecom — once the national phone firm, and now one of the nation’s biggest private enterprises, Orange — are on trial for “moral harassment”. It is the first time that French bosses have been prosecuted for systemic harassment that led to worker deaths.
If convicted, the ex-executives face a year in jail and a $16,800 fine. France Telecom was caught flat-footed by the digital revolution, as fixed-line subscribers dropped away by the thousands. The state ordered the company to go private in 2003, and by 2005, it was more than $50 million in debt. Company executives thought they needed to get rid of 22,000 workers out of 1,30,000 to ensure survival.
Weeks of testimony about employees who hanged themselves, immolated themselves, or threw themselves out of windows, under trains, and off bridges, have suggested that the former executives went very far in “pushing the company into the new century”, as corporate strategy dictated.
The executives include Didier Lombard, the former chief executive officer; Louis-Pierre Wenes, his No. 2; Olivier Barberot, the former head of human resources; and four others. The former executives have cited the intense pressure of a competitive and changing marketplace.