France Telecom Suicides Get Political

A high suicide rate among workers worried about their jobs at the giant French telco is prompting the government to get involved

By Stefan Simons

They ended their lives with sleeping pills, hanged themselves or jumped out of the office windows. The most recent suicide was Stephanie, a 32-year-old who killed herself on Sept. 14 by leaping out of a fourth-floor window in northwestern Paris. Stephanie was the 23rd France Telecom (FTE) worker to commit suicide since February 2008. Not all have been successful: The man who stabbed himself in the stomach at a meeting last Wednesday after hearing his job was at risk, for example, is now in stable condition at a hospital.

Some of the other suicides left notes blaming work conditions. One 52-year-old employee who killed himself in July left a note that blamed "overwork" and "management by terror." "I am committing suicide because of my work at France Telecom," he wrote. "That's the only reason."

Over the past 18 months, the suicide rate at the French company, which is quarter owned by the French state and where two-thirds of employees are classified as civil servants, has become a political issue. External pressure on the company is such that French Labor Minister Xavier Darcos called the head of France Telecom Didier Lombard in for a meeting. "The fact that these terrible things keep happening in one company obliges the government to be more watchful," Darcos said.

And Laurence Parisot, the head of the French employer's union (MEDEF) has also expressed her condolences and helplessness in the face of the suicides, saying, "We have to do everything we can so that these things do not develop further."

Closures, Redundancies, Unemployment Cause 'Econocide'

In the face of rising unemployment, business closures and a massive wave of layoffs, the French administration is concerned that the recurring suicides could be seen as evidence that their economic stimulus programs are not working. Politicians and chief executives are proposing a whole row of measures to help ease any stress, tension or conflict that the approximately 100,000 workers at France Telecom may be feeling.

Among the guarantees is a promise that there will be no further transfers until the end of October. More physicians specialized in occupational medicine will be hired, as will more human relations staff. And there will be help stations where those employees in need of psychological assistance can go. There will be an anonymous advice helpline for distressed employees. The direction the French government wants the telecommunications giant to go in is clear. France Telecom must be as efficient on the social level as it is on the technological one, the labor minister has said.

Whether any of these measures will have an effect remains to be seen. After all, a lot of the apparent causes for these staff suicides have to with structural changes at the business. Since the company, once part of the French post office, went public in 1997, it has been turned into a leaner, meaner France Telecom—along with its mobile telephone subsidiary, Orange. Even though the state still owns a majority share in the business, the shift toward privatization has brought with it a tough new management style concerned primarily with profit and productivity, according to unions and works committees. "There is no humanity anymore, no neighborliness. Only business counts," Patrice Diochet, the CFTC union's national secretary, said.

Head of Personnel: 'I Have Seen Worse'

It is not only the fact that 40,000 jobs are being axed. Complaints have been made about arbitrary transfers. Examples include technicians being transferred to customer service without enough training for the job, or unproductive salespeople pushed into call center work. The results have been pressure, anxiety and insecurity among staff members—so much so, in fact, that in 2007 France Telecom had already established an oversight committee to collect complaints from stressed-out employees.

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