PARIS - A decade after a wave of suicides at France Telecom in which 35 employees took their own lives, the telecoms giant and its former CEO go on trial Monday for "moral harassment". The trial opens at the Paris criminal court nearly seven years after Lombard and France Telecom were charged with harassment in what was a first in France. Unions and management accept that 35 France Telecom employees took their own lives between 2008 and 2009 and Lombard stepped down as a result of the deaths. Formerly a public company, France Telecom was privatised in 2004, a move which led to major restructuring and job losses. And France Telecom could be slapped with a 75,000-euro sanction if found guilty of "moral harassment" which is defined as "frequently repeated acts whose aim or effect is the degradation of working conditions".

Source: Bangkok Post May 06, 2019 03:45 UTC