France Telecom and Suicide

A post on the Web site of Reason magazine comments on the spate of suicides by employees of France Telecom (link via Instapundit.) Reason passes along the Agence France Presse's reference to the company as "the former state-owned giant," and the New York Times's reference to legacy contracts with employees "dating to the time when the company was owned by the French state." But state ownership isn't in the company's ancient history. As we've reported here, The France Telecom Web site says, "At June 30, 2009, the French State owned 26.97% of France Telecom S.A.'s share capital either directly or indirectly through ERAP and 26.98% of the voting rights." In France even the formerly state-owned companies are state-owned. This is not to belittle the accomplishment of reducing the amount of state ownership, but just to point out that the company is by no means what we'd consider in America to be a private, non-government company.