The ex-boss of France T\u00e9l\u00e9com and two former executives have been jailed over a moral harassment policy linked to suicides among employees in the 2000s.<\/p>\n
Didier Lombard was jailed for a year, as were Louis-Pierre Wen\u00e8s and Olivier Barberot, although eight months were suspended.<\/p>\n
The company, since renamed Orange, was fined \u20ac75,000 ($83,000; \u00a364,000).<\/p>\n
The court examined 39 cases of employees, 19 of whom had taken their own lives and 12 who had attempted to.<\/p>\n
The others had lived with depression or had been otherwise unable to work.<\/p>\n
Four other executives were found guilty of complicity and given four-month suspended sentences and \u20ac5,000 fines.<\/p>\n
Lombard, the former president and chief executive officer; Wen\u00e8s, his deputy; and Barberot, the former director of human resources, were also given fines, of \u20ac15,000.<\/p>\n
It is the first time that a French court has recognised “institutional harassment”.<\/p>\n
The BBC’s Paris correspondent, Hugh Schofield, says the trial has been seen in France as a landmark case for relationships between workers and management.<\/p>\n
At the time, the newly privatised company was in the throes of a major reorganisation. Lombard was trying to cut 22,000 jobs and retrain at least 10,000 workers.<\/p>\n
Some employees were transferred away from their families or left behind when offices were moved, or assigned demeaning jobs.<\/p>\n
“I’ll get them out one way or another, through the window or through the door,” Lombard was quoted as telling senior managers in 2007.<\/p>\n
He accepted that the restructuring had upset employees, but rejected the idea that it had led to people taking their own lives.<\/p>\n
Among the cases documented:<\/p>\n
For help and support on mental health visit the\u00a0BBC Advice pages<\/a>.<\/p>\n Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"