Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs is infamous for many things. Paris Mayor Jerome Coumet believes that Steve Jobs deserves to have a name in the city. The city's plans to build a startup community include naming several relevant streets with names on the topic but French communists are not pleased with the idea.
The name of streets and landmarks serve as an anchor of memory for significant individuals who had made a mark in the country. According to Reuters, Green and Communist local councilors in the 13th district of Paris -- where the nest of the startup community is to be built -- Apple's Steve Jobs does not deserve his name to be remembered and become influential in Paris because of dubious labor violations.
French communist local councilors said in a collective statement, "The choice of Steve Jobs is misplaced in light of the heritage he has left behind." Mayor Coumet replied with a tweet stating that Steve Jobs "is not a perfect man" but he had revolutionized the way people live by "popularizing computers" and introducing innovative interactive components of computers such as the mouse and the manufacturer of smartphones.
Last year, news networks had exposed reports from New York-based China Labor Watch that Apple's Chinese Laborers -- specifically its manufacturing arm Foxconn in China --had workers live in cramped dormitories and did not provide workers with proper job safety training. The Watch cited another manufacturing partner that employs about 100,000 Chinese workers who live in the same conditions.
Aside from the naming of a street in Jobs' honor, last year, a biopic about the technological innovator was released last year. The biopic indicated that Steve Jobs could possibly have had a $10.2 billion net worth in today's market. He died in 2011 succumbing to pancreatic cancer.
