Born in 1948 in Algeria from his baker parents, Alain Afflelou arrived in France in 1962. Freshly graduated from the Paris School of Opticsc, he opens his first optic shop, OPTICA in the suburb of Bordeaux.

Very quickly he wants to give the job of optician another dimension. He innovates by launching “Half of your frame for free” and invest a year’s worth of benefits in communication.

To his rivals’ great displeasure, Alain Afflelou sold a hundred pair a day. While some traditional opticians tried to attack his new methods as a discounter, others were interested in his success and wrote to him.

In 1979, the ALAIN AFFLELOU franchise was born. Some fellow students opened the first franchise shops. The hundredth shop opened in 1985.

Today with more than a thousand shops, the eponymous company keeps on taking risks to go beyond received ideas. The ALAIN AFFLELOU spirit prevails. A spirit of innovation never at rest, which jumps from one idea to the other, from one success to another one, and who knows how to listen and how to serve the most demanding consumers.