France Telecom Suicides Get Political

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Despite all of this, until relatively recently the company's chiefs have not seemed particularly disturbed by the suicides. "It's not that dramatic, I have seen worse," the satirical French weekly newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné quoted the head of France Telecom's human relations, Oliver Barberot, as saying. "The numbers of suicides are not even going up. In 2000 there were 28 and in 2002 there were 29."

Lombard also seems to consider the suicides more of a public relations issue than anything else. He also said that all of the reports in the media, in newspapers and on television, were part of the problem. "These are dramas—and they happen," said Lombard, who was unhappy that the suicides were being discussed so much in public. He also warned of the contagious nature of suicide. "The more you talk about this kind of thing, the more you put it into the heads of anyone who is psychologically instable."

However, these sorts of unsympathetic explanations seem to have made things worse. The solution to the problem could well lie in Lombard's hands. For the next three months, the heads of the company will be traveling around France to investigate why their workers are so unhappy. And Lombard has also talked about how he would like to end the suicides. He has promised better training for those in positions of authority. "We have already trained them according to scientific methods of successful management. But maybe this was not enough," Lombard said. "Our business leaders are of an outstanding quality but we will be adding some extra training in order to take care of any small weaknesses there might be."

Sarkozy Wants To Measure Happiness Rather Than Profits

Probably also worth noting are France's statistics on suicide. In France, in 2007, the average number of suicides per 100,000 inhabitants was 16.3. French men are three times more likely than French women to kill themselves and the age group in which the most French men kill themselves is between 45 and 49. In this age group the average deaths per 100,000 rises to 41.6. The 24 suicides at France Telecom occurred over a year and a half, so in actual fact the number of deaths from these causes within a workforce of 100,000 is about what one might expect, statistically speaking.

Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said this week that France, famous for its short working week and social benefits, would be taking happiness and well-being into account in the way the nation measured its economic progress. "A great revolution is waiting for us," said Sarkozy, who hopes to convince other nations at the G-20 summit next week to forgo the "cult" of the market. "For years, people said that finance was a formidable creator of wealth, only to discover one day that it accumulated so many risks that the world almost plunged into chaos."

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