“Plans for a ‘Rue Steve Jobs’ (that’s Steve Jobs Road) in Paris have come under criticism from far-left protesters, who are demanding that the road is instead named after a woman from tech history as part of the march toward ‘gender equality,’ Luke Dormehl reports for Cult of Mac. “The group, Front de Gauche, also takes issue with Jobs being name-checked due to various issues that it has with Apple as a company.”
“Rue Steve Jobs is a name decided by local mayor, Jérôme Coumet, who wanted to use it to inspire others based on Jobs’ history of technological innovation,” Dormehl reports. “The name would be given to a road in a part of Paris set to host the Halle Freyssinet, a massive $220 million startup campus that will be home to 1,000 startups.”
Front de Gauche “in a statement, decry the call for Rue Steve as ‘controversial,'” Dormehl reports. “They then list criticisms of Apple, ranging from its suppliers allegedly treating factory workers as ‘slaves,’ and its own ‘illegal tax optimization practices.’ Instead, they want the street named Rue Ada Lovelace, after the British woman is often described as the world’s first computer programmer.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “Slaves?” Wrong. Apple has done more to raise Chinese workers’ wages and foster workers’ rights in China than any company in the world. “Illegal tax optimization practices?” Wrong. Perfectly legal tax avoidance, not evasion.
Misplaced indignation from the woefully confused has grown beyond tiresome. This is but a tiny insight into why swaths of Paris, and indeed parts of France itself, have become cesspools that nobody wants to visit, much less live in or near.
On that note, tap the keg! It’s fine Austrian brew for us this eve, none of that nasty French toilet water here!