Former Ubisoft executive found guilty of attempted sexual assault and harassment

Former vice president of editorial and creative services, Thomas François, was found guilty of moral and sexual harassment, along with attempted sexual assault.

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François was fined €30,000, and sentenced to a three-year suspended prison sentence. Former chief creative officer at Ubisoft, Serge Hascoët, was also accused of making lewd and racist comments to a Muslim Ubisoft employee. Hascoët was also accused of harassment by this employee, as it's claimed he replaced her desktop background with images of food while she was fasting for Ramadan. Hascoët was fined €45,000 and was given an 18-month suspended prison sentence.

The third Ubisoft executive is Guillaume Patrux, who was accused of psychological harassment. Patrux was fined €10,000 and given a 12-month suspended prison sentence. This harassment trial initially began in March but was delayed until June, and came after the "A Better Ubisoft" fiasco that occurred in 2021. For those who don't know, "A Better Ubisoft" was an open letter from employees that called out the toxic culture that was taking place at the company, particularly by the higher ups, such as the three former Ubisoft executives mentioned above.

Reports indicate that Serge Hascoët once blew his nose in a tissue and handed it to a staff member and said, "You can resell it, it's worth gold at Ubisoft."

One of the biggest issues that Ubisoft employees brought up in the letter was when executives such as Hascoët were called out for their behavior, they weren't fired from their position, just relocated to a different department within Ubisoft global. Speaking of repositioning, Hascoët was never officially fired from Ubisoft, but instead resigned following an internal conversation about the accusations from employees.