Paris says no to 'Rue Steve Jobs'

Steve Jobs may have been a technologic
revolutionary, but his legacy will not be remembered in a Paris street name.

Jobs's name was one of several famous figures from the technology industry proposed to adorn new roads in the French capital's soon to be launched tech startup campus in the southeastern 13th district.

   

The socialist local district mayor Jerome Coumet had proposed naming one of the new roads "Rue Steve Jobs" but the former American entrepreneur, who died in 2011, didn't even make it to the voting booths after objections from communists and ecologists.

   

Instead, the likes of British World War II hero mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing, whose work helped the Allies defeat the Nazis, and American computer scientist and former Navy Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, who pioneered computer coding, have both been chosen.

    

Apple products such as the iPhone, iPad and iPod may have revolutionised the technological world but Jobs faced a backlash when his name was put forward to be honoured in the hub.

   

The suggestion of Jobs had not received "unanimous" backing, according to socialist Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo's first deputy Bruno Julliard, who explained the American's name was dropped from the Paris Council vote in the spirit of "a tradition of compromise".

   

When news that Jobs was up for consideration came to light, communist opponents hit out at his "legacy" of "insufficient wages", "forced overtime" for Apple subcontractors and "use of illegal tax arrangements".