I'm a journalist and writer, based in London but interested in the whole world. I'm fascinated by how economics, politics and culture combine to form the big picture and how the world is coming together through globalisation while becoming ever more diverse through cultural mixing and individual choice. I write primarily about globalisation, migration and European issues, but through this site's blog and my contributions to the Guardian's Comment is free group blog I am now ranging more widely. I am also a contributing editor to Prospect and as of September 2007, I will be a Visiting Fellow at the European Institute of the London School of Economics. I have followed up my first book, Open World: The Truth about Globalisation, with a new one, Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them, making the case for freer international migration (immigration).

I studied economics and then politics of the world economy at the London School of Economics. My journalistic career started at The Economist, where I wrote about trade and economics. From there, I moved to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) where I was special adviser to director-general Mike Moore. For my sins, I was briefly editor of World Link, the magazine of the World Economic Forum, a fantastic opportunity, albeit for a disreputable organisation. And I spent three long years at Britain in Europe as chief economist and then director of policy, making the case for the euro and the ill-fated European constitution in anticipation of referendums that were never called.

More happily, I have written for many interesting publications in Britain and the US such as the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, New Statesman and The Ecologist, as well as The New Republic, Foreign Policy and the Chronicle Review. In 1999, I was highly commended as Young Financial Journalist of the Year in the Harold Wincott Press Awards. I appear quite often on BBC TV and radio as a commentator on globalisation and migration. Perhaps my favourite TV moment, though, was going head-to-head with Neil Cavuto on America's Fox News where I wiped the floor with him — or at least I like to think so.

I am now 33, which makes me painfully young for some and terribly past it for others. In case you are wondering why I have a French name, my father is French (and my mother Estonian American), but I consider myself British, albeit also cosmopolitan. My friends call me Phil. I love writing, but it is not my whole life by any means. I enjoy experiencing new places and meeting new people — which is why I have taught myself Spanish and some Portuguese, as well as speaking French. I have had the privilege of travelling around the world twice to do research for my two books. I'm mad about music — mainly house and electro; my favourite DJs are Mark Westhenry and Sander Kleinenberg and my favourite club is DTPM. I'm a big Arsenal fan. I enjoy reading — Kundera, Garcia Marquez and more recently Murakami rock my boat — and intelligent films, my most recent favourite being Francois Ozon's Le Temps qui Reste (Time to Leave).

My outlook is broadly liberal, socially and economically. I am passionate about individual freedom, think markets generally work well and believe that competition is usually a powerful force for good. But I am also convinced that governments need to intervene vigorously to make a reality of equality of opportunity and help the less fortunate. I would say I am an optimistic realist: while the world is often wretched and unfair, there are now much greater opportunities for freedom and progress for many more people than ever before. At a personal level, I believe that although lots of bad things may happen, we have only one life and we should make the best of it.