PARIS — The former chief executive of one of France’s biggest companies and two subordinates were convicted on Friday of “institutional moral harassment” in the suicides of 35 employees in the mid-2000s, in a landmark ruling that represents the first time a French company has been held responsible for such a crime.

The chief executive, Didier Lombard, who led France Télécom, the former national telephone company that is now the telecommunications giant Orange, was sentenced to four months in prison and fined $16,000, as were the company’s second-in-command and its director of human resources at the time. Orange was fined the maximum $83,000.

The criminal court in Paris found that the three men were responsible for creating an atmosphere of fear during a desperate company restructuring that led directly to the suicides and attempted suicides of numerous employees.

Current and former workers gave wrenching testimony in a three-month trial this spring and summer about the severe anxiety that prevailed as the executives tackled a $50 billion debt by trying to get rid of 22,000 employees, out of a total of 120,000. Most of the employees were civil servants and thus could not be fired.