France Telecom ex-bosses go on trial over suicide wave

The former chief executive of France Telecom and other ex-bosses went on trial Monday facing unprecedented charges of moral harassment that allegedly prompted 35 employees to take their own lives a decade ago.

The wave of suicides, which shocked France at the time, took place from 2008 to 2009 and raised questions about the workplace culture at the former state telecom giant.

The company is now known as Orange after being renamed in 2013.

Former chief executive Didier Lombard, who helmed the company from 2005 to 2010, several other bosses and also Orange itself are on trial for allegedly overseeing institutionalised harassment at the company.

The trial opened at the Paris criminal court nearly seven years after Lombard and France Telecom itself were charged with "moral harassment," which is defined as "frequently repeated acts whose aim or effect is the degradation of working conditions".

"For six months I was given nothing to do," Yves Minguy, a former IT specialist who joined the company in 1973, told AFP before the trial. "They were putting pressure on us to quit."
"The moment of truth has arrived." Patrick Ackermann of the SUD union said he expected that the "former executives are convicted... that they express remorse and they recognise they crossed the line."