The FINANCIAL — The head of France Telecom's French operations, Louis-Pierre Wenes, on Monday has quit, after weeks of mounting criticism over management's handling of a spate of suicides by employees. His departure comes less than a week after a France Telecom employee became the 24th since February 2008 to commit suicide.
Stephane Richard, an ex-aide to the French finance minister who is to take over as CEO in 2011, will step up early to replace Wenes, the company said, according to AFP. Wenes and current chief executive Didier Lombard had faced calls to resign after 24 workers killed themselves in 20 months, but Lombard retained the support of the French state, which still owns 27 percent of the firm. France Telecom said instead that Wenes — who has been attacked by unions as the engineer of cost-cutting measures blamed for causing widespread stress — had tendered his resignation.
Richard, a former chief of staff to Finance Minister Christine Lagarde who joined France Telecom on September 1, will replace him as deputy CEO in charge of operations in France, France Telecom said in a statement, the same source reported. Wenes — who will remain an advisor to the chief executive — linked his decision to resign to the wave of suicides, in a statement to France Telecom staff obtained by AFP.
France Telecom says the suicide rate is not unusual for a company of its size, BBC informs. The company laid off some 22,000 people in the years 2006-2008.
Last week the head of France Telecom, whose biggest shareholder is the French state, with a 27 percent stake, presented the company's plan to deal with the suicides to Christine Lagarde at a meeting in Paris, after which Lagarde said Lombard had her "full and total confidence", CNN wrote.
The plan, which was presented to trade unions on Thursday, included the appointment of a "mobility mediator" in charge of dealing with complaints from workers, as well as a freeze in further staff cuts, according to the same source. Leftwing politicians including the opposition Socialist party have called for Lombard to stand down, after a 51-year-old France Telecom employee committed suicide last week.
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