In 1981, a peculiar blue box opened its doors in the Bobigny shopping center just outside Paris. It’s hard to believe that back then those four giant yellow letters I-K-E-A meant nothing to the motorists stuck in traffic passing by. Thirty years later the Swedish company has become such a leading name, a must-have even, in the world of furniture and interior design.
Its success can be measured in numbers: there are over 9,000 employees working for IKEA in France, most of them in the 28 blue and yellow stores that attract 51 million people every year. The two most recent outlets opened this year in Avignon and Thillois, just outside Reims, creating 350 and 300 jobs respectively.
