During the summer of 2020, many employees of the French video game giant Ubisoft spoke on social networks or in the press to testify about acts of moral and sexual harassment, in Europe and across the Atlantic. Three and a half years later, the Bobigny court decided to prosecute three former managers who worked at Ubisoft’s world headquarters, then located in Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis), reveals l’Informed. The trial date will be set for early February.
A judicial police investigation began after a complaint filed by two victims alongside the Solidaires Informatique union. At the end of this, the three men are suspected of having “created an atmosphere encouraging degrading and humiliating comments and behavior”.
The accused worked in the “Editorial” department. This department is responsible for setting the “editorial line” as well as the major creative directions for Ubisoft productions. As such, the “Editorial” can push or, on the contrary, put an end to projects under development.
The two former strong men of this service, who left Ubisoft during the summer of 2020, will be judged. Serge Hascoët, creative director of the group since 2000 and then considered Ubisoft’s unofficial number 2, is being prosecuted for moral and sexual harassment towards certain women in his department, as well as for “bullying and public humiliation of employees”. Among the facts cited by the Informed, crude words and gestures, or photos of pigs placed in the wallpaper of a collaborator of the Muslim religion.
His right-hand man, Tommy François, is accused of “crude remarks of a sexual nature”, comments on the physique of his collaborators such as “cod”, “ugly” or “bombshell”, and insults. L’Informed lists among the alleged acts that of “ordering an employee in a skirt to do a handstand in the open space, launching pornographic films on the computers, smearing marker on the face of an employee, regularly practicing ” cat dick” or “playing” at kissing colleagues on the mouth by surprise.”
The third manager, whose name is not communicated, is being prosecuted for moral harassment. Among the facts retained by the prosecution, “having threatened a colleague to kill her or having held a lighter to a colleague’s beard”, indicates the Informé.
The complaint filed by Solidaires Informatique also targeted the management of the Ubisoft group in order to recognize the systemic nature of a toxic corporate culture. The Bobigny public prosecutor’s office did not follow this path.
