To Brazil, I am a Brazilian citizen, while to the rest of the world I am French. When I was born in 1992, Brazil had just returned to democracy, after 20 years under a military government; inflation was galloping, impacting heavily on quality of life. So, My family moved back to France in 1993, a few years after the fall of the Berlin wall which had paved the way for German reunification, and then on to Turkey in 1997, shortly after the "soft" coup by the army to remove an Islamic government threatening the principle of the secular Republic. After Istanbul, we lived in northern Italy where the influence of extreme right parties was starting to spread. Finally, my family settled in Belgium where for years the Flemish and Walloon communities have struggled to form a stable government.

As far back as I can remember the political and social aspects of our countries of residence encouraged passionate discussions over the family dinner table allowing me to appreciate critical debate and consider my surroundings. Topics ranged from difficulties in emerging countries, to problems of immigration and discrimination and emergence of a new Islamic culture. These issues being so present in my daily life meant that I soon developed a passion for understanding more precisely the basis of current events, their social impact, and moreover, what can be done to nurture progress and how I can contribute to it. This is my main motivation to pursue academic studies in International Relations and Political Science. Indeed, this was also the reason why I selected History as one of the advanced courses that I am currently preparing for the International Baccalaureate (IB). It helps me to gain a foundational insight into the root causes of the current international political climate while developing critical thinking.

Due to family relocations I have studied in three different systems: the French system at primary level; the European Baccalaureate system until 2009; followed by the