35 Telecom employees killed in France: will their leaders go to jail?

PARIS – A group of men in blue blouses look uncomfortable while waiting in court

Paris

. And they have a good reason to be: they are accused of having harbaded their employees so relentlessly
this led to suicide.

The seven men, all former executives of the giant telecommunications company of

la France

they wanted to reduce the activity of thousands of workers ten years ago. But they could not get the most out of it. The workers were state employees, for life, and were therefore protected.

It was then that the leaders decided to make the lives of these workers so unbearable that they would leave, prosecutors said. According to the workers' lawyers, at least 35 employees at least committed suicide, felt trapped, betrayed and unable to find a new job on the immobile labor market in France.

Today, the former executives of France

Telecom

Once the national telephone company, and now one of the largest private companies in the country, Orange, is judged for "moral harbadment". This is the first time that a French boss, caught up in the wheel of strict labor protections in France, was being prosecuted for systematic harbadment resulting in the death of workers.

The lawsuit has captivated a country deeply in conflict with capitalism and corporate culture and can help answer a question that torments the French while modernizing their economy appropriately: until a company can she go to rationalize and eliminate her debts and earn money?

In case of conviction, former officers are liable to one year in prison and a fine of 16,800 euros. But even before the trial ends Friday, with a verdict that will be known a little later, it has become a milestone in the country's often hostile relations between workers and senior officials.

To try to make France a more friendly place for companies, the president

Emmanuel Macron

faces a large number of strikes and a revolt among the protesters of
Yellow vests that accuse him of being the president of the rich. While many workers complain of having trouble making ends meet, employers say that a generous benefits and worker protection system makes hiring expensive and removes job creation.

The trial has become a burning demonstration of these lingering tensions.

France Telecom was surprised by the digital revolution with the withdrawal of thousands of fixed line subscribers. The state ordered the privatization of the company in 2003 and, in 2005, it had a debt of more than 50 million euros.

The company's leaders estimated that they needed to get rid of 22,000 workers out of a total of 130,000, a need challenged by the prosecution, to ensure their survival.

"They were trapped and cornered," said Michel Ledoux, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers. "The only possibility was to send them away, one way or the other."

Weeks of heart-wrenching testimonies about desperate employees hanging around, immolations and road bridges, suggest that leaders have done much to "move society forward in the new century," in line with the company's strategy.

The leaders include Didier Lombard, the former executive director; Louis-Pierre Wenes, his number two; Olivier Barberot, former head of human resources; and four others.

According to the testimony of the trial, a dark universe of underemployment, marginalization, mistreatment and systematic harbadment in big business has been established.

The leaders "have sought the destabilization of workers," said Friday the prosecutor Françoise Benezech in his summary.

Among the victims, the youngest was Nicolas Grenouville, 28, who wore a pet jersey when an internet cable had been placed around his neck and had been hanged in a garage, said Ledoux in court this week.

"I can not stand this job anymore and France Telecom does not care about anything," wrote Grenouville shortly before his death in August 2009. "All that matters to them is money."

Camille Bodivit, 48, was a planner in the company when, suddenly, the description of her work began to change. He threw himself off a bridge in Brittany in 2009. "Work was everything for him," said his partner's lawyer, Juliette Mendès-Ribeiro.

"You killed my father, why?", Asked Noémie Louvradoux last week by addressing the accused. His father, Rémy, was burned in 2011 in front of a France Telecom office near Bordeaux, desperate for successive marginal rebadignments.

To defend themselves, the leaders spoke of the intense pressure exerted by a competitive and changing market.

"The company was sinking," said Lombard, the former CEO. "We could have done it much more easily if the competition had not knocked on our door."

Unfortunately for Lombard, he was registered in 2007 stating that he would reach the number of layoffs "one way or another, through the window or through the door". The window is what many of your employees have chosen.

Suicides and testimonies have shown that France's chronically high unemployment rate has left many workers feeling particularly vulnerable.

"Before, when there were other job opportunities, if you were not happy at work, you could tell your boss to go to hell," Guillon said.

But these conditions have not existed for years in France, where the labor market is stagnant and immobile by US standards and where workers have little culture to move to another country for a new job.

It is clear that these employees of France Telecom should end their career in the company. "Eighty percent were here to stay until the end of their working life," said Pascale Abdessamad, a France Telecom worker.

According to the testimonies, most of the employees were deeply devoted to their work. A company like France Telecom, emblematic of French life for years, was an apparent cover of lifelong security.

"These companies have considered themselves parents," Ledoux told the court.

The New York Times

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