Years of belittling, insulting or sexualizing colleagues under the cover of what was for them “Ubisoft culture”: three former executives of the video game company were sentenced Wednesday in Bobigny to up to three years in prison.
A leading figure in the company before being dismissed for serious misconduct after the scandal was revealed in the press, Thomas François was sentenced to the heaviest sentence: three years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros, for moral and sexual harassment and attempted sexual assault.
“Bitch” or “cod” as a greeting
Forcing a young subordinate in a skirt to do a handstand in the middle of the open space, throwing “bitch” or “cod” as a greeting, playing tag or kissing male colleagues by surprise… These were the work habits of the vice-president of the all-powerful editorial department.
The “Ubi culture” had been an ordeal for the handful of young people who broke the silence and filed a complaint in this case which is like a Me Too of video games.
The former number 2 at Ubisoft, Serge Hascoët, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined 45,000 euros for moral harassment and complicity in sexual harassment.
A third executive, Guillaume Patrux, was sentenced to 12 months in prison and a fine of 10,000 euros.
Small supportive group
By becoming civil parties, a small united group was formed and strengthened through the painful testimony and interrogations collected by the Bobigny criminal court during last month’s hearing.
Thomas François, who was between 38 and 46 years old at the time of the facts held up by the courts between 2012 and 2020, confessed at the bar to having “lacked perspective” because he had “at the time, the impression of being respectful of people”.
Serge Hascoët told the court that he had never been aware of the sexist comments and degrading hazing that took place a few meters from his glass office. Number 2 at Ubisoft in his capacity as creative director, he resigned in the summer of 2020 as soon as investigations by the daily “Libération” and the online media “Numérama” revealed the toxicity of this work environment.
The court was able to note the difficulties that the man, now aged 60, could have in separating private and professional life, assigning his employees to personal tasks with no connection to their skills.
Forced to “whims”
Picking up her youngest six-year-old daughter after school or crossing Paris to buy shelled peanuts… Despite their role as executive assistants, they were forced into these “whims” as the public prosecutor described them.
“It’s also what we see in the films,” Serge Hascoët defended himself before the court, whose president, dismayed, had to point out to him that “films are not reality.”
In his indictment, the prosecutor specified that the acts of moral harassment by Mr. Patrux had been “on a smaller scale than Serge Hascoët and Thomas François, but particularly intense for his team”.
During the trial, defense lawyers repeatedly repeated that their clients had never received “no disciplinary warning, no interview with HR.”
To the great dismay of all parties, neither the legal entity Ubisoft, nor its CEO Yves Guillemot nor its human resources manager Marie Derain have been the subject of prosecution in this case.
