France Télécom told to explain 23 staff suicides

Didier Lombard, the chief executive of France Télécom, will meet Xavier Darcos, the Minister for Work, tomorrow to discuss steps to help workers at the Gallic telecommunications group.

Christine Largarde, the Finance Minister, said today she had also told France Télécom to call a board meeting ''as matter of urgency''.

She said directors needed to send out a ''very strong message to the personnel'' that the suicide rate at the former state monopoly was ''being taken into account.''

Unions are blaming the suicides on a modernisation programme that has led 10,000 employees to change jobs over the past three years, with technical staff moved to call centres and sales departments.

Last week, a 32-year-old employee at Orange, the operator's mobile telephone unit, committed suicide when she threw herself out of a fourth-floor window at her office in Paris.