AT HIS home in a smart neighbourhood on the outskirts of Marseille, Michel liked to display his scores of trophies from marathons from New York to Paris. “You need a certain spirit and mental focus for long-distance running,” said his sister Christine.
Michel (51) was a perfectionist with a healthy lifestyle and a distrust of prescription drugs. He had two passions in life: sport and his senior job with the French mobile and internet giant Orange. But at his desk, Michel was living a private hell that made a mockery of the company slogan “The future’s bright, the future’s Orange.”
On Bastille Day, he was found dead in his bed at home by one of his sisters. He left a note stating that work was the “only reason” he killed himself, denouncing an alleged company culture of “management by terror”, and constant stress. “I have become a wreck,” he wrote. Since then, his family has pored over every comment he made about his job, how he brought his vast workload home, his disturbed sleep. “There was this pressure from the top to slim down operations by destabilising workers, people were undermined to the point that they got ill,” his sister claimed. “He told me he was regularly sent messages from managers suggesting he find work elsewhere. Once they suggested he open a rural guesthouse. He accepted a far too heavy workload out of fear of losing his senior job . . . It’s unacceptable that France Télécom [owner of the Orange brand] won’t accept their share of responsibility for his death.”
Michel’s suicide note has become the defining message from the grave in what the French phone giant France Telecom now calls a suicide “contagion effect”. In the past 18 months, 23 employees across France have killed themselves, and there have been 13 attempts. Workers on call-centre floors said they had to ask permission to go to the toilet or file a written explanation for going one-minute over a lunch break. Senior staff allege being bullied and being repeatedly forced to move job.
Under government pressure, France Telecom yesterday launched negotiations with unions over stress. This week, it introduced helplines and medical experts, and temporarily suspended staff relocations.
– (Guardian service)