France Télécom shelved its restructuring programme yesterday in a fresh attempt to calm anger among its workforce after a wave of suicides.

The company said that it had called off any plans to close and merge sites until next year while it held “intense” talks with unions about working conditions.

A total of 25 suicides since February 2008 have been blamed by some on a deep staff malaise caused by a modernisation of the former state monopoly as it seeks to become more competitive in the international market. Critics say that staff at the company, two thirds of whom were taken on when it was a state monopoly and, as such, considered themselves to be unsackable, had become desperate after being asked to overhaul working practices.

One of the most recent deaths occurred last month, when a 51-year-old employee killed himself in the French Alps. The man, who was married with two children, left a note blaming the “atmosphere” at work before throwing himself off a motorway bridge in Alby-sur-Chéran, close to the Swiss border. He had switched jobs recently to a call centre where he faced performance objectives.

The deaths have led to calls for the resignation of Didier Lombard, France Télécom’s chief executive. The controversy has already triggered the resignation of Louis-Pierre Wenes, the group’s deputy chief executive. Unions had blamed him for putting employees under intolerable pressure through a “management of terror”.

Mr Lombard, who was summoned to a crisis meeting with the French Government last month, has already pledged to freeze internal job changes until the end of the year in an attempt to end what he called a “death spiral” at the group. He has also hired 100 additional staff in human resources.

About 10 per cent of the group’s 100,000 employees have changed jobs in the past three years.

A France Télécom spokesman said yesterday: “We will suspend all restructuring until December 31.”

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