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8th August 2025
07:00pm BST
Lauren Van Wassenhove is suing a company after claiming she was paid a salary, yet she was never given any work to do.
For many, this might sound like a dream, getting paid for doing nothing, though this was not the case for Lauren.
Lauren says she felt like an 'outcast' during her time at the company and described the situation as an absolute 'nightmare'.
Last year, Lauren took the telecom company she worked for, Orange, to court for 'forced inactivity' and for 'making her invisible' in the workplace for over 2 decades.
Lauren joined the company back in 1993, when it was still known under the name France Télécom.
A few years in, Lauren developed epilepsy and hemiplegia, a condition causing paralysis on one side of the body. Due to her conditions, Lauren could no longer continue her original position within the company.
Fortunately, Van Wassenhove was also a trained HR assistant, so the company reassigned her to a more secretarial role.
What at first glance seemed like a reasonable adjustment soon led to what she describes as a period of standstill.
In 2002, Lauren requested a transfer to a different region of France, however, due to an occupational health assessment, Lauren was deemed unfit for the position, and she was later placed on standby.
Lauren told FTV that the years that followed made her feel like an 'outcast secretary', which took a toll on her mental health, per the Daily Mail.
"I was paid, yes, but I was treated like I didn’t exist," she told the online French outlet, Mediapart,
Lauren even filed a complaint to the government and the High Authority for the Fight against Discrimination back in 2015, however, no one seemed to be able to help Lauren's case.
"Being paid, at home, not working is not a privilege. It's very hard to bear," she said.
Lauren's lawyer, David Nabet-Martin, claims that a situation such as Lauren's is very tough on a person's mental health. He claims that Lauren now suffers from severe mental health issues due to being isolated for so long.
He goes on to say that Lauren was deprived of 'having a place in society' as a disabled person, causing her to suffer from depression.
Orange has since released a statement regarding the situation.
In 2024, the Orange told news outlet La Dépêche that the company had taken her 'personal social situation' into account and claimed she was kept in the best conditions considering her health.
