Paris proposal to name street for Steve Jobs sparks debate over his legacy

With the world’s largest startup campus opening soon in his neighborhood, the mayor of Paris’ 13th arrondissement had what seemed like a pretty benign idea: Rename the surrounding streets after famous figures from the tech world.

At the top of Mayor Jérôme Coumet’s list: Steve Jobs.

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But while Coumet may see Jobs as a digital pioneer, the local opposing Communist and Green parties begged to differ. They have criticized the choice, saying Jobs was a tax dodger and a bully who exploited cheap Chinese labor to rebuild his company.

“His legacy is the working conditions in contract factories,” the Communist group wrote in a statement. “Apple’s suppliers in China are known to abuse inadequate wages and forced overtime. But the legacy of Steve Jobs is also in the massive illegal tax optimization practices, as revealed just three months ago by the very liberal European Commission. There are nearly 13 billion euros that Apple has to pay today to offset the outrageous tax rate of 0.005% in Ireland.”

They proposed replacing “Rue Steve Jobs” with a street named after software pioneer Ada Lovelace. The leftist groups noted that this would create a better gender balance with the three names proposed for surrounding streets: Alan Turing, Eugene Freyssinet, and Grace Murray.

The streets in question surround Station F, the massive startup campus being funded by telecom entrepreneur Xavier Niel and set to open in April. Niel is renovating Halle Freyssinet, a historic train station designed by the engineer whose name it bears.

Coumet has defended his choice, saying that Jobs may have been imperfect, but he changed our daily lives by popularizing the personal computer and smartphone:

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Steve Jobs, n'est pas un homme parfait.
Mais il a changé notre vie quotidienne en popularisant l'ordinateur, la souris et le smartphone https://t.co/TNNYXu2lQk

— Jérôme Coumet (@jerome_coumet) December 2, 2016

But Coumet also responded by saying that one of the nearby streets will indeed be named for Lovelace, though it was unclear how that would change the overall mix of names.

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Et il y aura aussi une rue Ada Lovelace autour de la Station F @joinstationf

— Jérôme Coumet (@jerome_coumet) December 2, 2016

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The final names still have to be approved by a City of Paris committee.