At his home in a smart neighborhood on the outskirts of Marseille, Michel liked to proudly display his scores of trophies from marathons from New York to Paris.
“You need a certain spirit and mental focus for long-distance running,” his sister Christine said.
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 France’s Bastille Day bank holiday, 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, who do not want their surname published, 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 destabilizing 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. He had no other problems, no money worries, no family concerns. It’s unacceptable that France Telecom [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 of the company across France have killed themselves, and there have been 13 attempts.
Under government pressure, France Telecom yesterday launched negotiations with its unions over stress. This week, the company introduced helplines and new medical experts, and temporarily suspended staff relocations. But staff have begun to break their silence on their working conditions.
Workers on call-center floors said they had to ask permission to go to the toilet or file a written explanation for exceeding their lunch break by even one minute. Senior staff allege being bullied and being repeatedly forced to move jobs. Many have turned to antidepressants or taken extended sick-leave. Even workplace doctors have quit the company. One worker in Troyes, who survived stabbing himself during a meeting last week, said he felt it was his only option when told of further job moves.
A woman in Metz recently found unconscious at her desk said she had tried to take her life because she was sick of being treated like a “pawn.”
Outside a 1930s Orange-France Telecom building in chic western Paris, staff were coming to terms with the latest suicide.
“I’m scared to speak,” a worker in her 40s said.
Last week, Stephanie, 32, who dealt with business customers over unpaid bills, emailed her father from her open-plan office. She wrote of her fear at changing boss — the latest in a long line of changes to her work.
“I’m more than lost,” she typed, before jumping from her office window.
She had struggled with depression before, but was living what her father called “hell” at work. Some days she could not get up, or if she did, was in tears.
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