Now that a fifth worker at the PSA Peugeot-Citroën car plant in Mulhouse, France, committed suicide since the beginning of the year, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has publicly express concerned about what some psychiatrists are calling an epidemic. Indeed, the news gets worse as a woman employed at nuclear power supplier Areva in Paris hung herself, as some experts say France's workers are plagued by a possible suicide "contagion."
The tragedies this week were preceded by three suicides at French carmaker Renault's research facility in Guyancourt. Investigators at the Renault site are determining whether Renault management is criminally liable for the homicides.
But why French workers and why the car sector? It is not as if French workers at PSA Peugeot-Citroën or Renault face the hire-and-fire corporate culture as their counterparts in the U.S. where a job loss means losing health care benefits and, in many cases, one's home. One French psychiatrist, while noting the suicides as a possible "symptom of modern times," mostly described preventative measures French businesses can take.
