The French union has called for the head of Ubisoft to resign
At the same time, the activists also proposed to remove the entire company's board of directors.
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This statement was made during a conversation with the portal Game Developer by Marc Rutschlé and Chakib Mataoui, employees of Ubisoft Paris and representatives of the large French union Solidaires Informatique.
As Rutschlé and Mataoui explained, they have completely lost trust in Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot following the announcement of a new stage of restructuring. In this phase, Ubisoft's management decided to cancel or postpone 11 games, reduce staff, almost abandon remote work, and cut costs by another 200 million euros over the next two years. The activists emphasized that they do not place all the blame on Guillemot for Ubisoft's problems, but neither do they expect anything good from him anymore.
"In the end, it's his company. But everyone around him are just yes-men who agree with everything. The same situation occurred during the harassment scandal in 2020," Rutschlé said.
Furthermore, the union representatives are dissatisfied with Guillemot's tendency to appoint acquaintances and relatives to leadership positions. Notably, his son Charlie Guillemot recently headed the Vantage Studios division. According to Rutschlé and Mataoui, nepotism is ultimately affecting the quality of Ubisoft's games because the company lacks new creative talent.
Note that this is at least the second call for the resignation of Ubisoft's head in the past year and a half. Previously, the investment fund AJ Investments, which owns less than 1% of the company's shares, demanded it.