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Prosecutors in Paris, France have ordered an initial criminal inquiry into accusations that the management practises being conducted at France Télécom SA caused many of its employees to take their own lives in the past years.

On Friday, a Paris prosecutor’s spokeswoman said that an investigative judge will be named the following week to find out if there is enough evidence to put the telecommunications giant on trial for “moral harassment”.

In December last year, Sud PTT, one of the company’s main labour unions, filed a complaint for “moral harassment” after France Télécom said that 35 of its employees committed suicides from 2008 to 2009.

Claudia Chemarine, the lawyer of the firm, said that the investigation will possibly take a long time as the judge will need to conduct individual investigation on each death.

France Télécom CEO Stéphane Richard launched in March some measures to enhance the morale of workers, saying that he intends “to take stock of what had happened and offer answers”.

The announcement on Friday marks a step-up in the investigation concerning the series of cases of suicides at the company. Last March, a prosecuting attorney in Eastern France initiated an inquiry to investigate an individual case, and moved to find out if the company and one of its managers could be put on trial for the grounds of involuntary homicide. The probe followed the suicide of a worker of the firm last summer.

The Paris inquiry will assume a wider scope, and it will investigate if harassment committed by managers was prevalent at the firm. This comes after a report by inspectors from the French Labour Ministry that criticises the company’s treatment of its workforce, said a spokeswoman of a prosecutor in Paris. According to the report, the restructuring plan initiated by the company in 2004, which was meant to cut 22,000 jobs over the span of three years, was “tantamount to harassment”.

France Telecom must instigate radical change in order to address the problems within its workforce, which has been plagued by a spate of suicides, a report claims.

The study, commissioned by the company’s management after it emerged that 43 employees had killed themselves since January 2008, made 107 recommendations after carrying out interviews with hundreds of employees.

The report, which was leaked to the International Herald Tribune, suggested the company call a halt to disruptive reorganisation, closely monitor psychosocial risk factors and introduce a network of internal mediators to help deal with employee issues.

France Telecom spokesman Jean Bernard Orsoni confirmed that the details contained in reports were correct but added: “We don’t have a magic wand that we can wave and just fix the problem in a few weeks.”

The news comes just a week after Stephane Richard took the helm at the beleaguered communications giant and sources say the new chief executive will need to move quickly in order to address the issues within the organisation, which is a quarter owned by the French state and as such exists in a  limbo between big business and civil service.

The new boos has already announced plans to simplify the company’s management structures and improve their human resources management.

The company will now be meeting with union representatives to discuss the implementation of the recommendations.

The report concluded that “It is indispensible that actions accompany the talk.”

Plans are afoot for a massive shake up at tragedy stricken France Telecom.

The phone giant, which has suffered a much publicised spate of employee suicides over the last year, is preparing for a boardroom split that will see current boss Didier Lombard effectively demoted to company chairman, with his now deputy Stephane Richard stepping into the more hands on role of CEO.

The France Telecom board is expected to meet at the end of this month (FEBRUARY) in order to ratify the splitting of the existing CEO role, a move that is being seen as an effort to boost worker morale at, and public confidence in, France Telecom.

The company, which remains part state-owned, has been stricken by employment regulation changes such as the introduction of the 35 hour week, while its part nationalised position has left it unable to lose workers in designated civil service roles in order to cut costs.

Newspaper reports have accused the company of attempting to force out unwanted workers by marginalising them, blaming this practice for the number of employee deaths.

While others have attacked the office culture at the Telecoms giant saying managers lack people skills necessary to appease the workforce.

And since the problems have occurred under the leadership of Didier Lombard, it comes as no surprise that France Telecom is now hastening his departure from a hands on leadership.

Mr Richard, who moved to France Telecom from a finance ministry role last year, had orignally been expected to take up the reins after Lombard’s retirement in 2011.

The French government may intervene in the work culture at large French companies after the spate of suicides at France Telecom revealed the damaging effects of the country’s competition culture.

Labour minister Xavier Darcos has already ordered meeting between union bosses and the heads of more than 2,500 french companies in an attempt to prevent any further escalation of the phenomenon.

Business commentators have criticised the French working culture, which has led to as many as one in four employees of large national or formerly national companies feeling that they are “mentally vulnerable” as a result of their working environment.

The country’s highly competitive education system, has been blamed for turning out generations of bosses who are technically qualified to do their jobs, yet lack the essential people skills required to successfully manage a team.

Their lack of empathy was thrown into harsh relief when the compulsory 35 hour working week came into practice in France in 2000, leaving managers attempting to drive their teams to hit the same targets with significantly fewer man hours.

And the problem is confounded by the French system which sees many large corporations such as France Telecom and EDF still partially government owned, meaning some employees are still counted as civil servants and still benefit from contracts befitting that position.

And while technology has moved forward, some contracted workers skills have become obsolete, leaving them pushed aside and lacking in professional identity, with the cynics claiming this is a deliberate tactic to remove them from their positions.

One psychologist, Marie Peze, who has treated victims of the workplace marginalisation said: “Our technocracy, the elite of the French nation produced by the grandes ecoles, have a sovereign contempt for ordinary employees. As far as they are concerned, their workers know nothing.”