Bonum Certa Men Certa

Understanding Thierry Breton: Toxic Management Goes on Trial in France

Overview





Understanding Thierry Breton



Further parts pending review and research




Didier Lombard
Time to face the music: Didier Lombard on his way to the courtroom in May 2019



Summary: "In each of these cases, the suicide served as a symbolic act of protest to denounce workplace conditions at France Télécom and attract public attention to its practices."

Between 2006 and 2009, a wave of suicides hit France Télécom and turned the company into a byword for toxic management.



The macabre reputation which the company acquired as a result of these incidents stood in sharp contrast with its former image as a showpiece for successful liberalization and the privatisation of a former state-owned enterprise that was blazing a trail toward a new globalized economy.

On 4 July 2012, Didier Lombard, the former CEO of France Télécom (2005 - 2010) was placed under judicial investigation on charges of workplace bullying in the case of over eighty suicides and attempted suicides during his tenure.

In May 2019, a criminal prosecution case was opened against the former management.

Lombard and six other former France Télécom executives stand accused not of personally targeting individuals but of pursuing management practices across the company based on "harcèlement moral" or psychological harassment.

From 2008 onwards France Télécom came under intense political and media scrutiny following a sharp rise in the number of suicides amongst workers at the company - twelve suicides in 2008, nineteen in 2009, twenty-seven in 2010, and six in 2011. After a brief lull, suicide rates started to rise again in 2014 and the company went on "serious alert" in March 2014 following a further ten suicides by employees during the first quarter of that year.

The French press reported widely on these suicide cases, often describing harrowing details of the mental anguish experienced by France Télécom employees. Le Monde published letters written by suicide victims in which they described experiences of intolerable working conditions and pointed the finger at France Télécom as the sole cause for their violent actions.

France Télécom's reputation for workplace suicides now stood in stark contrast with its image in the late 1990s as a showcase example of privatisation ("laboratoire pour le privé") and as a former state owned company that was blazing a trail toward a liberalized global economy.

Instead of a neo-liberal success story, France Télécom came to symbolise the tragic human consequences of unchecked economic liberalization and managerial tyranny which was not merely tolerated at boardroom level but deliberately integrated into the management system and systematically applied on an industrial scale.

Didier Lombard's toxic management
Didier Lombard: The highly decorated executive now faces charges of "moral harassment"



In an article entitled "A Capitalism That Kills: Workplace Suicides at France Télécom" (2014), Sarah Waters, Professor of French Studies at the University of Leeds, examines the workplace suicides at France Télécom and concludes that they cannot be dismissed as a tragic accident or an aberration in an otherwise smooth-functioning economic order.

On the contrary they are to be seen as the outcome of a management strategy that set out to fulfil the imperatives of finance capitalism by eliminating what had come to be perceived as an unacceptable obstacle to its economic goals: the company's own employees.

The suicides at France Télécom saw the emergence of two opposing narratives, each of which provided very different interpretations of the events taking place at the company.

The narrative of the suicide victims and their families attributed the deaths to social and structural factors, such as workplace conditions and tyrannical management practices.

The second narrative, put forward by France Télécom executives, sought to individualise the causes of the suicides, linking them to flaws in character or mental balance and separating them from any connections to the workplace.

These opposing narratives reflect the vested concerns of two virulently opposed groups, each of which sought to assign blame to the other as a means to further its own agenda. In the case of the families, the aim was to secure financial compensation from France Télécom, and in the case of the company, to thwart all attempts at legal and financial litigation.

The narratives of the suicide victims and their families locate the causes of the suicides firmly in the workplace, attributable to intolerable working conditions, bullying management practices and a climate of insecurity.

Some victims chose to kill themselves in the workplace as a way of making explicit the connections between their experiences at work and their own violent actions. Of the twelve suicides that took place in 2008, at least three, not to mention two further attempted suicides, took place in the workplace.

On 11 September 2009, a 32-year-old female employee who dealt with business customers over unpaid bills and worked in a 1930s Orange-France Télécorn building in chic western Paris in an open-plan office, threw herself out of the window and died. She had earlier e‑mailed her father writing of her fear of changing bosses, the latest in a long line of changes affecting her work at the company.

On 26 April 2011, a 57-year-old technician set fire to himself in the car park outside his workplace in Mérignac near Bordeaux, upon arriving at work in the morning. In autumn 2009, he had written a detailed letter to his managers expressing his dissatisfaction with his professional role and criticising what he saw as the contemptuous attitude of management toward the staff.

In each of these cases, the suicide served as a symbolic act of protest to denounce workplace conditions at France Télécom and attract public attention to its practices.

France Télécom bosses presented a very different narrative that attempted to individualise the causes of suicide and explain them in relation to the personal or psychological vulnerabilities of the individuals concerned. The suicides were presented as isolated, sporadic, or random phenomena that were entirely disconnected from any links to the workplace.

Following the suicide on 2 July 2008 of a technician who had left a letter explicitly blaming France Télécom, company bosses denied any connection between his death and conditions in the workplace and confirmed to the press that the suicide had not taken place at work. Recent suicides were described a "independent cases involving multiple causes" and "particular situations often connected to great personal difficulties".

In response to the death of a 32-year-old France Télécom employee who killed herself at her workplace in Paris, Didier Lombard callously referred to a "suicide trend" in the company, a remark that contributed to his subsequent dismissal.

Despite the efforts of France Télécom management to deny any link to the workplace, for the first time this particular suicide was categorized by the social security office as a "workplace accident" which required the company to pay financial compensation to the victim's family.

Following his arrest in 2012 on charges of workplace harassment, Lombard continued to deny any connection between the suicides and the workplace. He mphasized the pressures of external financial constraints and the need to save the company in the face of a competitive globalized market.

In an interview published in Le Monde, he protested his innocence in the following terms: "I emphatically dispute that these plans which were indispensable for the survival of the company could have been the cause of the human tragedies which form the basis of the indictment".

In the face of mounting medical evidence, France Télécom managers persisted in refusing to acknowledge the company's responsibility in the suicides of its employees and attempted to block any legal actions taken against the company. During court trials brought against France Télécom by families of the victims, bosses contested medical evidence linking individual suicides to company policy.

Managers also went to considerable lengths to prevent any investigation into workplace stress. A company medical officer who had produced a detailed report on work-based stress was invited to speak at a trade union meeting, but France Télécom management refused to let him attend on the grounds that this would compromise his neutrality.

Similarly, when the Observatoire du stress et des mobilités forcées (created by trade unions in response to the suicides) distributed an online questionnaire to all employees in 2007, management attempted to block employee access to the website through its internal computer network. When the results of 3,234 responses were publicized and revealed that two out of three employees suffered from work-related stress and that one out of two wished to leave the company, executives argued that the questionnaire was not "scientifically valid".

In September 2009, CEO Didier Lombard was summoned to appear before the Ministry of the Economy and the Senate to account for the rise in suicides in the company. When interviewed by the Senate's Commission of Social Affairs, Lombard was virulently criticized for using brutal management techniques and for failing to take preventive measures to address work-related suicides.

It was only after this political intervention that Lombard made the decision to temporarily suspend all staff relocations. The company also took the initiative to introduce helplines and to increase the number of medical officers on staff.

When Stéphane Richard became company director in 2010, more comprehensive changes were made in management policy. In an effort to appease tensions in the company, Richard shelved Lombard's NEXT (Nouvelle Experience des telecommunications) restructuring plan and permanently ended all staff relocations.

In the next part we will examine the role of Thierry Breton in this saga of toxic management.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Red Hat QA Team "Had Shrunk by Half Over the Past Year." (After IBM Divestment)
If Red Hat's workforce is being moved to the East, then RHEL can become a national security problem
 
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Digital Minimalism and Social Control Media
Links for the day
IBM's GNU/Linux Divestment, Based on Hard But Anecdotal Evidence (IBM Fails to Recognise How Much Money It Made and Can Still Make From "Linux")
Love us or hate us, a lot of what we've been saying about Red Hat under IBM turns out to be rather accurate
Links 04/09/2025: Massive Microsoft Staff Cuts (Barely Reported), "Strange Conspiracy Theory Is Reportedly Spreading Inside OpenAI"
Links for the day
Activists Can Win, But Keep an Eye on the Ball and on the Trophy
GitHub is dying, it was a loss-making trap, not free hosting
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Katrina Remembered, Distracted Driving, and Virtual Economics
Links for the day
At This Point It's No Longer Matthew Garrett But People Who Fund Matthew Garrett (or Companies That Fund His SLAPPs Against My Wife and I)
The only thing worse than misogynists are misogynists who fail to respect other people's right to go on holiday
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 03, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 03, 2025
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VI - This Serious Harm Was Planned for Over a Decade, Not an Accident or Merely Some Misfortune
The term "Serious Harm" is legally meaningful here
GNOME Unfit for Diversity and Inclusion
GNOME's leadership is using "bad words"
Brodie Robertson Addressing the Recently-Discovered Comments
Most people probably knew nothing about this until he wrote a response
Slopwatch: "Open Source" and "Linux" News Faked, Made by Bots and Entered Into Google News
Spam combined with slop about "Linux" has entered Google News
Links 03/09/2025: Microsoft Causes Mass Layoffs Outside Microsoft Also, "Google Can Keep Paying for Firefox Search Deal"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/09/2025: calendar.txt, Alhena 5.3.1, and ROOPHLOCH
Links for the day
The Theory That the Man From McKinsey, Whom Red Hat Took From Microsoft a Month Ago as Executive, Wants 'Efficiency' (Lower Salaries)
So far... no "official" word
When Your Site's Articles Are Being 'Cheapened' by Slop as Feature Images
Dr. Farnell should become an advisor to The Register MS
Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Drops to Only Half a Dozen Capsules and 0.2% of the Whole in Geminispace, Self-Signed is the Way to Go
It used to have hundreds, according to Lupa
Doing to Red Hat What They Already Did (and Still Do) to IBM
there seems to be a drive to hire cheaper staff, and it may be led by somebody Red Hat hired from Microsoft
Links 03/09/2025: Salesforce's Latest Mass Layoffs, 93% in Large Poll at The Register MS Say UK Government Should Dump Microsoft
Links for the day
Preparations for Our 19th Anniversary Have Already Begun
When we get back we'll probably sort out some balloons and venue for the next party
Pleased After 2 Years With team.blue
Moving from a Content Management System (CMS, dynamic) to a Static Site Generator (SSG) was a wise decision that made life so much easier
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is Being Attacked by Organisations Jealous of Its Principled Stance and Longevity
Nobody is perfect, but imperfection does not instantaneously imply sinister intent
If You Reject the Google Verdict in the US, Then You Should Also Reject the "Modern" Web (Do Something About It)
Gemini Protocol is still open; it cannot be hijacked or subverted because it's frozen by design and by intention
Open Source Initiative IRS Filing: Almost All the Money is Corporate, Stefano Maffuli (Executive Director) Takes About a Quarter of That Money for Openwashing of "AI" Ponzi Scheme
OSI is currently little but a PR/marketing agency of Microsoft
Many People Are "Leaving" Red Hat, Even High-Level Managers
Something is definitely going on at Red Hat
Techrights Has Been Subjected to Calls of Violence (and Death Threats), It Never Condoned Violence
I have no sympathy for people who call violence "free speech" and then get in trouble
Condoning Violent Behaviour and "Free Speech"
perhaps Microsoft Lunduke lost touch with what constitutes violence
Takeaway From the Google Verdict: GAFAM Has Too Much Control (Even Over the US Government and Courts With Government Appointees)
Many people feel disappointed but hardly surprised by the verdict
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 in One Month
As noted a few days ago, several times in fact, many people now recognise the importance of the FSF's mission, even if most people don't know what the FSF is
Many Microsoft "Assets" Are Fabricated Baloney (to Game the Numbers)
At times it seems like what we deal with are many weak patents (on algorithms), valuations or speculations based on hype ("hey hi"), and stocks held by Microsoft and its own staff
"Voluntary" Layoffs at Microsoft (to Game the Numbers, Sugar-Coating a Crisis)
"Employees interested have until the end of October to volunteer."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 02, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 02, 2025
Links 02/09/2025: Oligarch Tech and Text Encoding Concerns in Ada
Links for the day
"Internal Changes at Red Hat / IBM"
It seems like quite a few people are leaving
Confirmed in French Media: Mass Layoffs (10% Culled) in Microsoft France
Now some reports in French
"People on LinkedIn Saying That They've Left Red Hat."
We already saw signs of it a month ago and named some of the people
Gone With the BRICs (or BRICS): "Linux 8" in Cuba
GAFAM must be worried
Telecompaper Reports Microsoft to Reduce the Workforce by Another 10% (in France)
Imagine what this will do to staff's morale
Microsoft in Freefall in Finland
Can Finland eradicate Windows from all its infrastructure, including core operations that are sensitive to sabotage by cracking?
Google's Chrome Passes 70% and Web Standards Are Dying
The Web is quickly becoming devoid of any standards
India is Back to Windows 8 (Market Share Down to 8%) as Android Soars to a New Record High
For Microsoft, India is a runaway market
Slopwatch: Plagiarism and Ponzi Scheme, Bubble About to Burst Entirely, Admits Goldman Sachs
the hype that Google News and The Register MS actively participate and profit from
Links 02/09/2025: SCO Summit and Russia Suspected Of Jamming GPS
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/09/2025: Mediterranean Marriage and Staying Connected at 35,000 Feet
Links for the day
The Register MS Says "AI Web Crawlers Are Destroying Websites", So Why Does The Register MS Help 'AI' Companies? (Spoiler: Money)
People need to call out The Register MS on its hypocrisy
Slopfarms Already Peaked, They Will Die When Slop Companies Run Out of Money to Borrow
slopfarms will lack an actual "engine"
Links 02/09/2025: Attacks on Unions, Microsoft TCO, and DDoSing a Growing Problem
Links for the day
Why We Publish Information About the SLAPPs (But Not About the Legal Process), an Abuse of Process by Americans Trying to Silence Critics of Their Employer, Microsoft
It doesn't take thousands of pages to explain something simple
Internet Relay Chat Didn't Fall Off a Cliff
IRC will turn 40 in less than 3 years from now
The UEFI 9/11 - Part V - This is Not a Drill (Disable "SecureBoot" Now)
A "9/11" Coming
There's No Obligation to Speak to Anybody
The very fact that "bkuhn" is till spending time in social control media says a lot about his poor judgment
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 01, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 01, 2025
Microsoft Trying to Force People to Resign (Amid Mass Layoffs) a Strategy That Takes Its Toll
Microsoft seems to be circling down the drain and the "final flush" will be the moment the "hey hi" (AI) bubble implodes completely
Google Simply Cannot Be Trusted
Only fools would trust GAFAM
Admission That a Third Party (or Parties) Funds the SLAPPs Against Techrights
This can end up costing them over a million dollars
Modifying and Writing One's Own Computer Programs is Not a Crime (or: Google Proves That Stallman Was Right)
We're generally gratified to see so many positive mentions of him
Why We Stopped Publishing Videos (for Now)
We'll probably get back to videos one day, but it's hard to say when or to what extent
What Animal Rights Activism Teaches Us About Sympathy and Focus
It's possible to believe that the planet is warming, that we must do something about it, and still eat eggs and butter