Anger in Paris over plan for a 'Rue Steve Jobs'
Oliver Gee - [email protected]
Published: 2 Dec, 2016 CET.
Updated: Fri 2 Dec 2016 13:08 CET
A plan to name a Paris road "Rue Steve Jobs" is an insult to gender equality and to those working as "slaves" in Chinese factories, argues the French left.
The 13th arrondissement in Paris is soon to fling open the doors of the Halle Freyssinet, a start-up incubator set to host 1,000 small businesses.
And with that new building comes a new road that runs alongside, which until recently had yet to be named.
The local mayor, Jérôme Coumet, eventually decided on "Rue Steve Jobs" in honour of the late co-founder of US tech giant Apple, a somewhat fitting choice, perhaps, given Jobs' renown for technological innovation.
But members of the far-left coalition Front de Gauche say when it comes to the name, there's definitely a worm in this Apple.
"The choice of Steve Jobs is controversial," the group wrote in a statement.
"Firstly because Paris is trying to promote gender equality in the street names, and because women have been greatly overlooked for too long."
"But the choice of Steve Jobs is even worse considering the reality of his legacy."
The group then listed a host of their issues with Jobs and Apple, from the conditions for factory workers in China, their "inadequate wages", and the company's "illegal tax optimization practices".
The Front de Gauche said they'd prefer the street was named Rue Ada Lovelace after the British woman who is widely considered to have been the first computer programmer.
The mayor's office had also suggested to name the street after computer scientists Alan Turing or Grace Murray Hopper, or even after French civil engineer Eugène Freyssinet.
The Halle Freyssinet is set to open its doors in early 2017.
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The 13th arrondissement in Paris is soon to fling open the doors of the Halle Freyssinet, a start-up incubator set to host 1,000 small businesses.
And with that new building comes a new road that runs alongside, which until recently had yet to be named.
The local mayor, Jérôme Coumet, eventually decided on "Rue Steve Jobs" in honour of the late co-founder of US tech giant Apple, a somewhat fitting choice, perhaps, given Jobs' renown for technological innovation.
But members of the far-left coalition Front de Gauche say when it comes to the name, there's definitely a worm in this Apple.
"The choice of Steve Jobs is controversial," the group wrote in a statement.
"Firstly because Paris is trying to promote gender equality in the street names, and because women have been greatly overlooked for too long."
"But the choice of Steve Jobs is even worse considering the reality of his legacy."
The group then listed a host of their issues with Jobs and Apple, from the conditions for factory workers in China, their "inadequate wages", and the company's "illegal tax optimization practices".
The Front de Gauche said they'd prefer the street was named Rue Ada Lovelace after the British woman who is widely considered to have been the first computer programmer.
The mayor's office had also suggested to name the street after computer scientists Alan Turing or Grace Murray Hopper, or even after French civil engineer Eugène Freyssinet.
The Halle Freyssinet is set to open its doors in early 2017.
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