I have been interested in minerals for more than 50 years. Travelling to visit places and collect specimens with fellows is a great pleasure to me (France, Morocco, Spain, South West of the USA, Italy). All these years and trips result in quite a large number of specimens (total is over 43,000 catalogued specimens, half of them collected; this represents 2,600 species, including 900+ collected).

The species I like most are arsenates, phosphates, sulphates, etc. of copper, lead, cobalt, zinc, iron, manganese, uranium...

My favourite specimens are small well formed crystals on any kind of matrix size. For practical reasons, I keep all my collection specimens in plastic boxes, mainly of "European" MM size (28 x 28 x 22 mm), but I like larger ones too, up to 7.6 x 6.6 x 5.6 cm.

Some of my present and past activities and milestones:
. president of Association Française de Microminéralogie (AFM) between 1993 and 2007,
. discovery of new species and involvement in the definition of 18 new species: yvonite, jacquesdietrichite, bouazzerite, maghrebite, afmite, bariopharmacoalumite, angarfite, forêtite, omsite, jasrouxite, favreauite, alfredopetrovite, écrinsite, hydroxyferroroméite, gobelinite, galeaclolusite, graulichite-(La) and ginelfite. Other minerals hopefully on their way...,
. participation to the definition and/or publication of : pushcharovskite, guanacoite, bendadaite, zincalstibite-9R; participation to the redefinition of matulaite, to the definition of structure of cobaltarthurite, camerolaite, chabournéite, duranusite, parnauite, ceruleite and bulachite.
. development of FACES, a crystal design computer program for PC, for easy and fast modelling of single crystals,
. writing of articles and monographs in the AFM magazine (Le Cahier des Micromonteurs), Lapis, Le Règne Minéral, Mineralogical record, Revista de Minerales/Mineral Up,
. EDX analysis of minerals,
. SEM photography of microminerals,
. Micromounters' Hall of Fame 2000,
. Pinch medal 2021,

... still considering myself as having a lot to learn ... and pleased of learning everyday!