Mr. Lombard, now 80, was fined the same amount of 15,000 euros as that imposed at first instance in 2019.
Its number 2 at the time of the events (2007-2008), Louis-Pierre Wenès, was also sentenced on appeal to one year in prison with a suspended sentence and a fine of 15,000 euros, twelve years after the events marked by a wave of suicides of group employees.
“This decision reverses the decision taken at first instance. You will not carry out this prison sentence”, indicated the president of the court, Pascaline Chamboncel-Saligue.
“The judgment does not satisfy everyone, the court (…) hopes that both of you can continue on your way and that you will no longer have to deal with justice”, she concluded. .
The public prosecutor had requested a year in prison, including six months suspended and a 15,000 euro fine for MM. Lombard and Wenès, sentenced at first instance for their “preeminent role” in the implementation of a “hard-line” downsizing policy over the period 2007-2008 at France Telecom.
The two former managers of France Telecom (which became Orange in 2013) faced justice because of the implementation in 2006 of two restructuring plans (from 2007 to 2010) following the privatization of the company (2004 ) and providing for the departure of 22,000 employees and the mobility of 10,000 others (out of some 120,000 employees).
These departures “in forced march” with “prohibited methods” had led to a “degradation of working conditions” of “thousands of employees”, some of whom committed suicide.
The crisis erupted in broad daylight after the suicide in July 2009 of Michel Deparis, a Marseille technician who directly implicated France Telecom in a letter.
France Telecom has become the symbol of suffering at work. The company, which did not appeal, had been sanctioned with the maximum fine of 75,000 euros in a historic judgment, becoming the first CAC 40 company condemned for institutional “moral harassment”.
The ex-HRD Olivier Barberot, sentenced at first instance to one year in prison including eight months suspended and a 15,000 euro fine, had withdrawn his appeal.
