The ex-chief executive of France Telecom and two other former executives have been jailed for pursuing a cost-cutting policy that was so severe it led to a spate of employee suicides.
Didier Lombard, his former deputy Louis-Pierre Wenes, and Olivier Barberot, the ex-head of human resources at France Telecom (which changed its name to Orange in 2013), were found guilty of “institutional harassment” for presiding over a restructuring program that allegedly prompted 35 employees to take their lives in 2008 and 2009 (and dozens more to attempt to do so).
