Alain Afflelou is a French optician and entrepreneur, born on January 1, 1948, in Mascara, to a merchant father. He is the founder and manager of the optical chain that bears his name.
Biography
Alain Afflelou comes from a Jewish family originally from Mascara, in the department of Oran and later from Mostaganem, in French Algeria. His parents, Isaac Afflelou and Fernande Amsellem, were bakers in Sidi Bel Abbès — rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, at the bakery “La Gerbe d’or.” In 1962, when Algeria gained independence, he went into exile with his parents, his sister Éliette, and his brother Maurice, like hundreds of thousands of Pieds-Noirs, and settled in Bordeaux, France.
Alain Afflelou first had three children with Joëlle Miler, whom he married in 1971: Lionel, Laurent, and Romain, born in 1980. He later had a fourth child, Anthony, born in 1991, with former “Coco girl” Alexandra Lorska, with whom he lived for nine years. He remarried on December 12, 2002, to Dutch former model and ex-partner of Alain Delon, Rosalie van Breemen, from whom he divorced in July 2008. On February 6, 2014, he married Christine Coulaud.
In 1972, after graduating from the institute and optometry center in Bures-sur-Yvette, he opened his first store in Le Bouscat, a suburb of Bordeaux, at the age of 24. In 1978, he created the optical chain that bears his name, through a franchise network. He managed to establish the brand in the French optical landscape, particularly thanks to the advertising surrounding it.
As of November 6, 2007, the investment fund Bridgepoint Capital, through the company 3 AB Optique Financement, held 96.08% of the Alain Afflelou company. In July 2012, Lion Capital acquired a 77.19% stake in the Alain Afflelou group, while Alain Afflelou retained 21.97% of the group.
After living between Geneva and Paris, he resided between Paris and Biarritz before moving to London.
In December 2012, the optician denounced an “unfair and confiscatory tax system” and moved to the United Kingdom for professional reasons, unrelated to his public statements, according to him. He said on RTL on December 22, 2012, that he would continue to pay part of his taxes in France, particularly the solidarity tax on wealth (ISF). On January 27, 2014, Le Monde newspaper named Alain Afflelou among others as a tax evader in Switzerland as part of the HSBC case.
Football
Alain Afflelou first entered football between 1986 and 1988 with AS Monaco, which went on to become French champions. Afflelou returned as a sponsor of ASM from 2014 to 2016 and again during the 2019–2020 season. In 2020, he announced the extension of his partnership with ASM until 2022.
He later became president of Girondins de Bordeaux, who played in the first division, from 1991 to 1996.
From July 1996 to 2001, he served as president of US Créteil football club (D3 then D2). In 1998, when the club had strong results in the third division and a chance to move up to the second, he realized that the Dominique-Duvauchelle stadium was unlikely to meet the approval requirements. He then proposed relocating the club to the Stade de France, which had no resident team. However, due to opposition from fans and most club officials, US Créteil stayed in its original stadium, which was expanded and modernized during its promotion to the second division in 1999. He decided to leave the club two years later.
In 2004, Alain Afflelou wanted to buy Racing Club de Strasbourg. But in the end, it was Philippe Ginestet who purchased it and became president after lengthy negotiations.