My name is Michaël and I was born on the 25th of September, 1975 in Saint-Junien, Limousin. I'm Occitan, French and European all at once. I claim the three nationalities. The latter, which is also more recent, I accompany with all the enthusiasm of one who knows the price of living in peace at long last on the culturally richest and most varied continent in the world, which it took wars as shameful as deadly to realize only togetherness and bread make families happy. I'm also a child of the Republic I hold so dear because it was won with the blood and faith of patriots a thousand times more noble than the lords and ladies who were met by their revengeful guillotine, although it was the Revolutionaries who started the constitutional discrimination against so-called patois, those provincial dialects not worthy of being loved. As for the Òc countries, where I've always stayed, except for the five wonderful years I spent in Scotland and Ireland, they're the land of my heart, the sun in my smiles, the salt in my tears and the echo of my voice. I lived in Rochechouart, in Sanguinet, near Biscarosse, in Mollégès, in Provence, in Albi, in Vichy, in Rodez, from where I'm writing these lines, and I probably forgot half a dozen others... I studied in Toulouse; I did my military service in Montauban; I became a paratrooper in Pau, and despite all this the only language they taught me in school was Molière's, a Parisian's! It's true that mossú Poquelin was an inspired playwright, I'm not denying it, but it's also true Messrs Mistral, Rouquette or Boudou are far from being scribblers! Nowadays, thanks to the prestige of a Nobel prize and the priceless support of our Catalan brothers, thanks also to Louis Alibert and the IEO's efforts for an orthographic and grammatical normalization, from Bayonne to Limoges across Montpellier, a great, generous and passionate people is waking up again and the tunes of "Se canta" and "Copa santa" proudly resound in the mouths of the children of the troubadours... So please be welcome to my home, the home of a borderless nation; welcome to the sacred ground of gai saber, paratge and fin'amor, to Occitania, whose soul lasts forever!