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ESMT–414–0149–1

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ES1491
May 19, 2014

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ESMT Case Study

Suicides at France Télécom

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Ulf Schäfer
Konstantin Korotov

Introduction
On September 15, 2009, the French Labor Minister Xavier Darcos called a meeting with Didier
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Lombard, the chairman and CEO of France Télécom, the country’s main telecommunications
company, which employed around 100,000 people in France and of which the government still had a
27 percent controlling interest. The meeting was more than a formal consultation, and Darcos was
more than merely interested in developments at the company. He was very worried about the
employment culture at France Télécom where 23 staff members had committed suicide during the
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previous 18 months. The most recent death had occurred just the day before: a 32-year-old woman
who became known as Stéphanie had thrown herself from the window of her fourth-floor office in
Paris. Her very public death in the center of the capital transformed the personal tragedies into a
public drama.

HIGHLY COMMENDED CASE IN THE CATEGORY “RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP”

OF THE 2012 EFMD CASE WRITING COMPETITION
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This case study was prepared by Ulf Schäfer and Konstantin Korotov of ESMT European School of Management and
Technology. Sole responsibility for the content rests with the author(s). It is intended to be used as the basis for
class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a management situation. The
case is based on publicly available information and contains numerous quotes of journalists, academic experts,
psychiatrists, union representatives, company officials, and company employees. The quotes are not intended to
represent factual descriptions of what happened, but are to serve as illustrations of different viewpoints,
opinions, and debate contributions relating to the events of the case. The case authors explicitly do not endorse
any of the viewpoints expressed.
Copyright 2014 by ESMT European School of Management and Technology, Berlin, Germany, www.esmt.org.
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ESMT cases are distributed through Harvard Business Publishing, http://hbsp.harvard.edu, and The Case Centre,
http://www.thecasecentre.org, please contact them to request permission to reproduce materials.
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 ESMT–414–0149–1 Suicides at France Télécom

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France Télécom
France Télécom (FT) was one of the world’s leaders in telecommunications, with global interests in
Internet, digital television, IT services, and mobile phone networks, as well as fixed line telephony.

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Most of its divisions operated under the Orange brand. Annual consolidated revenues in 2008 were
€48.3 billion, and the company employed approximately 186,000 people worldwide (see Exhibit 1).

The organization was founded in 1889 as the Direction Générale des Télécommunications, a
government agency that controlled the infant telephone network. It remained a state-owned
monopoly and division of France’s Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications until 1988 when, in
response to European legislation, the French government granted the company financial,

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management, and organizational independence. The company, under its new name of France
Télécom, remained under the control of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications until 1998
when it was privatized and floated on the Paris Bourse.

The privatization of FT followed similar moves across Europe as governments sold off their telephone
networks and in the process gave birth to large modern organizations such as British Telecom,
Telefónica, and Deutsche Telekom. The leadership at FT pursued similar plans as these new private
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companies began to reshape the European telecommunications industry.

But FT employees were less enthusiastic. The first attempt to end French government control of the
company in the early 1990s was defeated by the company’s own employees, 75 percent of whom
participated in a strike protesting the move. Strikes also prevented a second attempt to
denationalize the company in 1995, and it was three years before a third attempt finally proved
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successful.

Post-privatization developments
France Télécom entered the world of private enterprise at a time when global markets were
embarking on a period of rapid growth. Digital communications, in particular the Internet, were
growing at a phenomenal rate. Even the bursting of the dot-com bubble in March 2000 merely killed
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off the weaklings and caused no more than a delay in the relentlessly upward trend in Internet
technology growth. Wireless mobile technology was developing rapidly, and the market for cell
phones and their derivatives offered massive growth potential for FT’s Orange brand, which it
acquired from Vodafone in May 2000, when Telecom shares peaked around the globe, for £26.9
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 Suicides at France Télécom ESMT–414–0149–1

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billion.a Those days of growth and prosperity were good for FT and its many thousands of employees
in France.

But the downfall of the stock prices for Télécom shares (see Exhibit 2), the need to repay the

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significant debt that FT had on its balance sheet while ensuring constantly high dividends for
shareholders, and fierce national and international competition, ushered in a new age of hardship for
FT employees. When in 2005 Didier Lombard took the helm as CEO and chairman of FT, job security
was a debate not only within the company but all over France.

Job security, which employees in France saw as a right, was under attack. Government attempts to
modify French employment law provoked widespread disapproval. In the spring of 2006, after two

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months of protests, sit-ins, and violent demonstrations, the French government yielded to public
pressure and scrapped the proposed Contrat de Première Embauche (CPE). The CPE, which formed a
central plank of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin’s new Equal Opportunities Bill, had been
intended to give young people access to the job market. This was a drastic solution to the problem of
youth unemployment, then running at more than 20 percent.1 What had upset the rioters was a
clause supposedly designed to build flexibility into the employment market and encourage the
creation of more jobs. This clause would have allowed employers to terminate their contracts with
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workers below the age of 26 without having to give any reason. To many, this clause was an attack on
what they saw as their basic entitlement to the security of employment as enshrined in the contrat à
durée indéterminée (CDI), a contract that virtually guaranteed permanent employment. Under the
terms of this contract (which most French workers enjoy) any dismissals are subject to a long, drawn-
out process and the redundancies of more than one employee have to be referred to local
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government officials.

The government climb-down and abandonment of the Equal Opportunities Bill was a humiliating
defeat for de Villepin and a victory for what many foreign commentators regarded as French society’s
over-developed sense of entitlement. Simon Heffer, political columnist for the UK’s Daily Telegraph,
described the protests as a symptom of France’s “sclerotic and over-regulated society. […] France's
traditional arrogance – built on the basis that, in the end, she always got her own way – has now
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morphed into a defensive petulance, which seems to be the country's only way of acknowledging
defeat.”2

But while French workers were sometimes portrayed by foreign critics as pampered and work-shy,
Christian Baudelot, a professor of sociology at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, believed this

a
The hugely successful Orange brand and network had previously been launched by Hong-Kong telecom giant
Hutchison-Whampoa and had rapidly gained shares as an international operator within Europe. In October
1999 it was acquired by Germany’s mobile operator Mannesmann, and Vodafone, upon acquiring Mannesmann
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in February 2000 was forced by EU regulations to put it up for sale.

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 ESMT–414–0149–1 Suicides at France Télécom

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betrayed a misunderstanding of a defining characteristic of the French workplace: “The truth is that
we are very attached to our jobs […]. More than almost anywhere else, people define themselves by
their professions.”3

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The fears of FT employees about the denationalization of their employer were borne out. In an
attempt to become a “leaner and meaner” organization, FT’s approach to tackling over-staffing was
to introduce human resources programs with English names like “NExT” – which had a goal of
eliminating 22,000 employees from FT’s payroll – or “ttm” – short for time to move, a plan to
systematically reassign employees and middle managers every three years to new positions, which
often involved relocation and working in new functions. FT’s Senior Executive Vice President of Group
Transformation and French Operations and Deputy Chief Executive Louis-Pierre Wenes, who had

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joined FT in January 2006, was responsible for the restructuring programs. In the 10 years following
privatization, the company shed some 40,000 jobs in its drive to improve efficiency and deliver value
for its shareholders. As the pressure to deliver increased, the employees began to feel the stress and
started what union leaders would later call the “spiral of suicides.”

The suicides
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Notes left behind by some of the suicides were unequivocal in blaming an intolerable atmosphere of
bullying and victimization in the workplace. Just a couple of days before Stéphanie jumped to her
death, a 53-year-old FT employee was found dead at his home having left a letter blaming conditions
at work for causing his desperation. That same week a 48-year-old technician from Troyes in Eastern
France stabbed himself in the stomach during a meeting at which he was told he would have to take
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up a new post. He survived and later told journalists that his action was designed to denounce
working conditions at FT.4 A 52-year-old employee who killed himself in July 2009 spoke of
“overwork” and “management by terror” clearly stating that “I am committing suicide because of my
work at France Telecom,” adding the words: “That’s the only reason.”5

Stéphanie herself died after a meeting to discuss the reorganization of the Orange customer service
department in which she worked. According to her father, she had been emotionally fragile since her
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mother’s death in 1996 and had long felt isolated at work. She rarely ate lunch with her colleagues
and detested her line manager. Things improved after she was moved to the customer service
department in June 2009 but then she learned that her old boss would be taking over the
department. In an e-mail to her father she wrote: “I’d rather die […] I’m taking my organ donor card
with me, one never knows […].”6 Other suicides and attempted suicides told a similar story. An
employee in Marseille who killed himself in July 2009 left a note blaming “overwork, stress, absence
of training and total disorganization in the company.” He left a note in which he declared: “I’m a
wreck, it's better to end it all.”7
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 Suicides at France Télécom ESMT–414–0149–1

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Explanations
Ironically, according to some experts, the combination of global competition and French job
protection laws may have conspired to create a brutal corporate culture in which unwanted

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employees were sidelined into menial jobs or even bullied into resigning. Bill Stewart, a professor of
business administration at the American University of Paris, said: “France Télécom used to live off
voluntary departures, retirements, and buying people out to shrink its payroll. But now they can’t do
it the old-fashioned way […]. Managers are clearly under pressure to make their head-count numbers,
but they can’t easily get rid of people.”8

Several current and former FT employees supported this theory. One was Francis Le Bras, a 56-year-

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old writer of software applications and an engineer at FT for 20 years, who became a “corporate
nobody” when his name disappeared from the organizational chart on the wall of his Paris office and
he was reassigned work that had nothing to do with his qualifications. Le Bras said that while he
remained on the payroll he had no job title and was blanked by his colleagues:

Little by little they give you really dull tasks, or tasks I cannot do. I can’t even be upset with
my current boss who clearly doesn’t know what to do with me. Once, when he gave me
something to do he said: ‘If you weren’t here I would give this to an intern […] It’s an
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explosion in mid-air, you accumulate sick leave, you take more and more medication
because you’re depressed. You no longer exist. You are nothing. You can’t contribute
anything so that they look at you less. And the less people look at you, the less you are
considered. And then you are in trouble.9

Le Bras concluded: “They didn’t know I was there. I thought of suicide.”10 Another employee, 42-
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year-old software engineer Ludovic Nonclercq, explained how, after his work had been criticized by
his superiors, he was simply sidelined. Despite being told that his job no longer existed, he was not
offered a redundancy package and was kept on the payroll even though there was no longer any
reason for him to come to work. He was trapped by the very job security that French workers
cherished and found himself unable to move on.11

The Economist commented on the situation in France: “Unable to shed staff, firms give employees
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meaningless jobs instead, to try to nudge them out. […] In a country that idealizes the good life, the
reality of drudgery and waiting for the monthly pay check, or of solitude in retirement, may be
harder to accept.”12

Although more than 60 percent of FT employees were still categorized as civil servants, having joined
the group prior to privatization, they now found themselves working for a competitive business
driven by technology and productivity. With privatization, a shift of focus and management style was
observed. Patrice Diochet, a union’s national secretary noted: “There is no humanity anymore, no
neighborliness. Only business counts.”13 Fabrice Sahut, who joined the company in 1989, commented:
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 ESMT–414–0149–1 Suicides at France Télécom

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“We have earphones on our heads all the time now. All the camaraderie is gone. All that’s left of the
public service we once knew is nostalgia.”14

Further, the French style of management – especially among trained engineers – may have had an

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aggravating effect, according to Paris-based psychiatrist and employment consultant Patrick Legeron:
“In France, executives are expected to have the right diplomas and be technically competent rather
than be any good at managing people […]. French managers relegate everything to do with human
relations to second place.”15

According to psychoanalyst Marie Peze, the dramatic and continuous changes in people’s work might
have been responsible for the suicides:

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The people who commit suicide are usually the strongest employees in the team, the most
genuine people who are most involved in their work and who carry out tasks to the letter in
order to do the best job possible. And then they are told that their job can be done any
which way, that it’s not important and that the main thing is that the order is sent out.16

And psychiatrist Brigitte Font le Bret, who worked with many FT employees observed:

All patients have one thing in common: They are 50 years old. It will take them still quite a
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while before they retire and they know that it is too late to retrain them. There is no
alternative for them. They all have been technicians, technicians who loved their job. And
now they understand that they will not be utilized anymore, neither as a salesperson nor in
a call center.17

A patient of hers, who had attempted suicide explained:

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When I started at France Télécom, there were still girls at the switchboards around. Since
then we have participated in all developments, societal and technical – with phenomenal
commitment. And this is how they express their gratitude. That hurts. I have the impression
we are working the whole time to liberate me from feelings of guilt. But it’s not my fault! I
have the impression that France Télécom refuses to accept responsibility for the condition
I’m in. That makes me sick.

Asked to reflect on his suicide attempt, the man added: “Regarding the suicide, it was very simple. It
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just suggested itself. Not as a solution, but rather as a logical end of a continued downslide.”18

Reactions
The crisis meeting between Labor Minister Xavier Darcos and FT’s Didier Lombard in September 2009
sent out the message that both the company and the government were taking the suicides seriously.

After the meeting, the labor minister described FT as “a company which is on the cutting edge of
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technology, that doesn’t stop undergoing technological and economic changes, and that, as a result,

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 Suicides at France Télécom ESMT–414–0149–1

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is a jewel of the French technological world.” He then added: “But precisely because it is submitted
to this evolution and change, it’s essential that the company is very attentive to its workers and that
it understands that there is no technological progress without social progress.”19

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Unions were quick to press home the message of employer bullying and systematic mobbing, accusing
the company of driving its workers to despair. Sebastian Crozier, president of the union CFE/CGC
demanded: “Managers must stop the job transfers and reduce the amount of reorganizing and
restructuring. That is the main message the government must get across. Jobs must stay in France.”20

France Télécom, while conceding that its restructuring program might have had some role to play in
the suicides, defensively pointed to the fact that the suicide rate was statistically normal for a

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company of its size. There was no increase of suicides as compared to previous years; FT revealed
that in 2000 there had been 28 suicides at the company and even 29 in 2002. And while
acknowledging that 23 suicides over an 18-month period was alarming, FT tentatively suggested that,
statistically speaking, this figure was not unusual. In 2004 (the last year for which records were
available at that time), the national suicide rate was 15 per 100,000 and the rate at FT was 15.3.b To
affirm causality between work issues and staff deaths was said to be too simplistic. Experts had told
the company that suicides were usually caused by various factors in combination; and most suicides
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were prompted by personal rather than professional causes.

CEO Lombard, however, was attacked for his apparent view of the issue as more of a public relations
disaster than a human tragedy demanding sympathy and corrective action. “These are dramas – and
they happen,” he said, pointing next to the irresponsible role the media played in bringing the issue
to the fore. Warning of the possibly contagious effects of reports, he predicted that “[t]he more you
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talk about this kind of thing, the more you put it into the heads of anyone who is psychologically
instable.” Lombard promised to train managers in addition to familiarizing them with “scientific
methods of successful management. […] 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.” 21 It
didn’t help, though, when CEO Lombard spoke of the “mode du suicide” (“fashion for suicide”) in the
company; apologizing publicly the following day, he claimed that his remark was the result of a
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botched attempt to express the English word "mood" in French.

b
The French suicide rate was high compared to most other developed countries and, according to one of the
country’s biggest unions, the CGT, there were as many as 400 suicides in France every year that could be
directly attributed to working conditions. This was confirmed by the World Health Organization, which
reported that France had one of the highest industrial-related suicide rates in the world and that only the US
and Ukraine had more cases of work-related depression. See World Health Organization, Suicide prevention
(SUPRE), http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicideprevent/en/index.html (accessed
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May 14, 2014.)

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 ESMT–414–0149–1 Suicides at France Télécom

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France Télécom promised further concrete measures that would be quickly taken to deal with the
issue. Barbara Dalibar, executive director of Orange business service said:

We are going to put in place better systems to monitor stress levels. This will include

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external counsels and even a scientific advisor who will give us conclusions on the situation
by the end of November so that in December we can formulate an action plan and discuss it
with various professional organizations.22

Repercussions
Despite the statistics and the company’s willingness to discuss the issues with the French labor

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minister, FT failed to quell the outcry, and the following month deputy Chief Executive Louis-Pierre
Wenes, who had been in charge of the restructuring programs at FT, resigned.

A few months later, in an in-depth interview with meettheboss.tv, Wenes reflected on his work at FT
and the events that drove him out of the company.

[A] suicide is always something dramatic. That somebody ends his life is really something
which makes me feel very, very bad, and we have to do everything we can to avoid them. By
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the way, we've been doing a lot of things even before this came into the media. […] I don't
want to underestimate the issue, but what I'm saying is, it was not a France Télécom-
specific issue as such. You must then ask yourself why did it come up that way, and in my
opinion, it's because a certain number of external stakeholders had their personal agenda,
and it's always very easy to play on the emotions of the people. […] [W]e were 120,000
people, so it's – I'm sorry – it's 16 a year. It's far too much, but these were the facts. And by
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the way, a lot of things have changed since, and unfortunately, people are still committing
suicide. […] [I]f you go through such a huge transformation, you will create stress at the
individual level, but it's normal. If you tell me that tomorrow I have to change jobs or
something like that, even if I'm confident in my skills, there is obviously a period where I
feel unsecure, ask myself questions. We knew that, so we also put in place special
structures where you could come, discuss with HR people what your future should look like.
We had jobs that were just disappearing because of the technology.23
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Referring to himself as the “scapegoat,” Wenes added:

[Y]ou think and you're sure you've been doing the right things, and suddenly you were
stabbed in the back for reasons, which I said before, I'd say a lot of them had nothing to do
with the business itself. It's like you're running a race and somebody gives you a sudden hit
in the back and you fall over. Now, on the other side, if you're a manager in that position
taking risks because that's what the company needs, I'd say at least in the French
environment and probably also in other countries, you have to expect that something like
that can happen. So it is what it is. Of course, I would have liked it to have gone differently,
but this is how it went.24
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 Suicides at France Télécom ESMT–414–0149–1

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In February 2010, a government inspector’s report found that “pathogenic” management methods
had been applied to achieve a job reduction target of 22,000 between 2006 and 2008. According to
information by the blog safetyatwork, the inspectors added:

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The result is a list of 107 recommendations that include a move away from what has been
called “the testosterone-fueled confrontational management style apparently adopted by
FT’s senior management after seeing the movie ‘Wall Street’ too many times.”25

As a consequence of the report, Lombard had to step down as CEO (while retaining the chairmanship)
in March 2010, handing the reins of the company to Stéphane Richard. While Richard prepared the
public for likely further suicides at FT, a few weeks later the company announced new proposals to
change working conditions in a bid to address the criticisms in the report. Among the proposals put

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forward was a plan to recruit 3,500 more staff to take the pressure off existing workers and a
moratorium on reorganization that involved a pledge to make job transfers voluntary rather than
mandatory and to do “‘all that it can’ to keep open small sites that had been earmarked for
closure.”26 FT also announced that 1,100 top managers, including the new CEO Richard, would have
between 30 and 50 percent of their salary linked not only to financial results but also to “social
performance,” such as employee attendance and satisfaction. The company also promised to provide
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managers with “sensitivity training” and said that it would decentralize many decisions that would
previously have been made at a national level.27

Eventually, in July 2010, CEO Stéphane Richard publicly announced that he considered the company
responsible for the suicide crisis. Introducing a new five-year strategy aimed at ending the suicides
and winning back investor confidence, Richard vowed to re-establish the “human element” at the
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heart of the group’s development and to boost employee morale.

The CGT union cautiously welcomed the “good intentions” but said the company still had to spell out
how much it would invest in this new plan. With FT shares trading at their lowest level since 2002,
doubts loomed over Richard’s willingness to spook the markets by altering the group’s financial
targets. Meanwhile, an analyst with Goldman Sachs summed up Richard’s quandary, writing on the
same day the plan was announced that “since the company is focusing on its employees, it seems
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unlikely to us that labor costs will drop in 2010,” downgrading the group from “buy” to “neutral.”28
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Exhibit 1: Financial statements France Télécom Orange 2001–2009

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Consolidated (in € million, for 12 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001
months ended 31/12)

IFRS IFRS IFRS IFRS IFRS Local GAAP Local GAAP Local GAAP Local GAAP
ESMT–414–0149–1

Assets

Fixed assets 77,458 79,119 85,506 88,387 94,271 84,462 85,375 92,740 104,337
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Current assets 13,452 15,666 15,095 14,784 15,079 14,231 14,458 13,847 23,021

* Cash & cash equivalent 4,989 5,584 4,640 4,569 4,302 3,465 5,224 2,864 4,081

TOTAL ASSETS 90,910 94,785 100,601 103,171 109,350 98,693 99,833 106,587 127,358

Liabilities & Equity

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Shareholders' funds 26,864 27,090 29,471 26,794 24,860 14,451 12,026 -9,951 21,087

- Capital 10,595 10,460 10,457 10,427 10,412 9,869 9,609 4,761 4,615

- Other shareholders funds 16,269 16,630 19,014 16,367 14,448 4,582 2,417 -14,712 16,472

Non-current liabilities 41,953 40,843 43,147 48,890 54,489 53,219 55,995 71,656 71,307
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- Long term debt 31,116 32,277 32,686 38,063 42,636 42,793 44,516 47,726 54,543

- Other non-current liabilities 10,837 8,566 10,461 10,827 11,853 10,426 11,479 23,930 16,764

* Provisions 2,232 1,821 2,192 2,740 3,324 3,877 5,513 14,150 8,663

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Current liabilities 22,093 26,852 27,983 27,487 30,001 31,023 31,812 44,882 34,964

- Loans 6,303 9,149 9,424 5,629 5,512 11,480 9,057 13,495 1,596
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- Creditors 7,531 9,519 9,580 9,015 9,518 7,757 7,368 8,503 8,631

- Other current liabilities 8,259 8,184 8,979 12,843 14,971 11,786 15,387 22,884 24,737

Total shareholders' funds & liabilities 90,910 94,785 100,601 103,171 109,350 98,693 99,833 106,587 127,358

Memo lines
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Suicides at France Télécom

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Exhibit 1: Financial statements France Télécom Orange 2001–2009 cont.
Consolidated (in € million, for 12 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001
months ended 31/12)

IFRS IFRS IFRS IFRS IFRS Local GAAP Local GAAP Local GAAP Local GAAP

Enterprise value 78,595 88,024 101,699 93,657 98,439 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.

Number of employees 164,651 186,275 187,331 191,036 203,008 206,485 221,657 240,145 206,184
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Suicides at France Télécom

Operating revenue (Turnover) 45,413 48,303 47,248 52,175 48,492 46,719 46,401 46,630 43,026

Costs of goods sold 17,886 18,993 18,069 21,953 19,207 17,273 17,223 18,558 17,619

Gross profit 27,527 29,310 29,179 30,222 29,285 29,446 29,178 28,072 25,407
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Other operating expenses 18,324 18,684 18,740 22,652 19,024 19,942 19,344 21,264 20,207

EBITDA 16,642 18,681 18,683 18,299 17,864 18,207 17,372 14,718 12,110

Depreciation 7,439 8,055 8,244 10,729 7,603 8,703 7,538 7,910 6,910

Operating P/L [=EBIT] 9,203 10,626 10,439 7,570 10,261 9,504 9,834 6,808 5,200

Financial P/L -3,759 -3,638 -2,546 -3,833 -3,130 -3,817 -5,588 -16,970 -10,317
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P/L before tax 5,444 6,988 7,893 3,737 7,131 5,687 4,246 -10,162 -5,117

P/L after tax 3,202 4,089 6,648 1,557 5,712 3,210 6,837 -12,661 -2,185

P/L for period [=Net income] 3,018 4,069 6,300 4,139 5,709 3,017 3,206 -20,736 -8,280

Permissions@hbsp.harvard.edu or 617.783.7860
Cash dividends paid 3,141 4,949 3,117 2,602 1,184 710 - 395 1,075
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Memo lines

Costs of employees 9,235 8,768 9,067 9,169 9,165 9,754 n.a. n.a. n.a.

Interest paid 2,293 3,170 2,938 3,441 3,388 4,069 4,164 17,106 9,980

Research & Development expenses 862 900 894 856 716 597 478 576 567
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Cash flow 10,457 12,124 14,544 14,868 13,312 11,720 10,744 -12,826 -1,370

Source: France Telecom Orange annual reports.

ESMT–414–0149–1

11
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 Permissions@hbsp.harvard.edu or 617.783.7860
This document is authorized for educator review use only by DR. MRIDULA MISHRA, Lovely Professional University until Jul 2020. Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright.
12
Adjusted closing share price at end of trading day (US$)
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$0
$10
$20
$30
$40
$50
$60
$70
$80
$90
$100
Exhibit 2:

31-12-'97
30-04-'98
31-08-'98
31-12-'98
30-04-'99
31-08-'99
31-12-'99
30-04-'00
No

31-08-'00
31-12-'00
30-04-'01
31-08-'01
31-12-'01
30-04-'02
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31-08-'02
31-12-'02
30-04-'03
31-08-'03
31-12-'03
Share price development of FT on NYSE (in US Dollars)

30-04-'04
op
31-08-'04

Source: Yahoo Finance, Historical prices, http://finance.yahoo.com (accessed May 14, 2014).
31-12-'04
30-04-'05
31-08-'05
31-12-'05
30-04-'06
31-08-'06

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31-12-'06
30-04-'07
31-08-'07
31-12-'07
30-04-'08
31-08-'08
31-12-'08

rP
30-04-'09
31-08-'09
31-12-'09
30-04-'10

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Suicides at France Télécom ESMT–414–0149–1
 Suicides at France Télécom ESMT–414–0149–1

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Endnotes
1
Bentley, R. (2006). French employment law revolution cut to ribbons. Personnel, April 18.
http://www.personneltoday.com/Articles/2006/04/18/34948/french-employment-law-revolution-cut-to-

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ribbons.html (accessed May 14, 2014).
2
Heffer, S. (2006). What’s happened to Paris? Daily Telegraph, May 6. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
culture/3652136/Whats-happened-to-Paris.html (accessed May 14, 2014).
3
Sage, A. (2009). Why are France Telecom employees committing suicide? The Times online, September 23.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/health/mental-health/article1791736.ece (accessed May 14, 2014).
4
(2009). Suicides lift lid on French misery. BBC News online, September 15, http://news.bbc.co.uk/
2/hi/8256870.stm (accessed May 14, 2014).

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5
Simons, S. (2009). French government steps in to staff suicides. Spiegel Online, September 17.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/france-telecom-suicides-french-government-steps-in-to-stop-
staff-deaths-a-649715.html (accessed May 14, 2014).
6
Sage, A. (2009). France Telecom told to explain suicides. The Times online, September 14.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/telecoms/article2193859.ece (accessed May 14, 2014).
7
Ibid.
8
Tomlinson, R., and G. Viscusi (2010). Suicides inside France Telecom prompting Sarkozy stress testing.
Bloomberg Businessweek, January 24. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive
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&sid=a3Esvz92Fko4 (accessed May 14, 2014).
9
Agence France-Presse (2009). France Telecom employee speaks out about dire conditions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tdXp0ZqAB4. October 7, 2009 (accessed May 14, 2014).
10
Tomlinson, R., and G. Viscusi, Suicides inside France Telecom prompting Sarkozy stress testing.
11
Ibid.
12
Suicide in France. Bonjour tristesse. Why are the French so prone to suicides? The Economist, October 8,
tC

2009. http://www.economist.com/node/14588104 (accessed May 14, 2014).

13
Simons, S. (2009). French government steps in to staff suicides.
14
Sage, A. (2009). Why are France Telecom employees committing suicide? The Times online. September 23.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/health/mental-health/article1791736.ece (accessed May 14, 2014).
15
Tomlinson, R., and G. Viscusi, Suicides inside France Telecom prompting Sarkozy stress testing.
16
Agence France-Presse (2009). Reaction to France Telecom suicides. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=Drdp5bB04JY&NR=1 September 15 (accessed May 14, 2014).
No

17
Arte France (2010). France Télécom: Malade à en mourir. Un film de Bernard Nicolas. Broadcast November 16.
18
Ibid.
19
Suicides lift lid on French misery. BBC News online. September 15, 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/
2/hi/8256870.stm (accessed May 14, 2014).
20
Agence France-Presse (2009). Reaction to France Telecom suicides.
21
Simons, S. (2009). French government steps in to staff suicides.
22
Agence France-Presse (2009). Reaction to France Telecom suicides.
23
Wenes, L. Interview by Jonathan Spragg. Video recording. MeetTheBoss TV http://www.meettheboss.tv/
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video/looking-back-moving-forward (accessed May 14, 2014).

13

This document is authorized for educator review use only by DR. MRIDULA MISHRA, Lovely Professional University until Jul 2020. Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright.
Permissions@hbsp.harvard.edu or 617.783.7860
 ESMT–414–0149–1 Suicides at France Télécom

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24
Wenes, L. Interview by Jonathan Spragg. Video recording.
25
Jones, K (2010). Important lessons from France Telecom suicide investigations. SafetyAtWorkBlog, April 13.

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http://safetyatworkblog.com/2010/04/13/important-lessons-from-france-telecom-suicide-investigations.
(accessed May 14, 2014).
26
Salmarsh, M. (2010). France Télécom suicides prompt an investigation. New York Times. April 9.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/10/business/global/10ftel.html?_r=0 (accessed May 14, 2014).
27
Radio France Internationale (2010). Unions criticise France Telecom suicide response plan. Radio France
Internationale, March 27. http://www.english.rfi.fr/economy/20100327-unions-criticise-france-Télécom-
suicide-response-plan (accessed May 14, 2014).

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28
Reuters (2010). Preview: France Telecom 5-year plan in focus after suicides. Reuters. July 1.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/07/01/frtelecom-idUSLDE6601C520100701 (accessed May 14, 2014).
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No
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14

This document is authorized for educator review use only by DR. MRIDULA MISHRA, Lovely Professional University until Jul 2020. Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright.
Permissions@hbsp.harvard.edu or 617.783.7860