Full article: Fifty-Five Plus Magazine
November/December 2024
Keith Spicer (left), Canada’s first commissioner of official languages, co-founded Paris for Seniors with his daughter Genevieve (middle). Keith’s granddaughter Grace is on the right.
In 2003, Keith Spicer, the academic, journalist, and public servant who became Canada’s first commissioner of official languages, retired to Paris. He became a veritable Wikipedia page on the city, even penning books on the subject. As he aged, he found ways to continue to enjoy its pleasures, nonetheless. He also enjoyed the periodic company of his Ottawa-based daughter Genevieve (from his first wife, a French native), her carpenter husband, and their two daughters.
Looking to spend more time together as an extended family, Genevieve took inspiration from her father’s ageless joie de vivre. She parlayed her experience servicing the seniors sector as a communications consultant into an idea that would win her a four-year work visa. It’s a special authorization issued by the French government under its Competences et Talent special program, encouraging foreign initiatives promoting Parisian culture. The result has helped hundreds of seniors see the famed City of Light in safety and comfort, no matter their physical or other challenges.
Paris For Seniors offers custom travel solutions for visitors to the French capital who require special assistance. Want to visit the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Champs-Elysées, but unsure, given your age and/or ailments, that you’re able? Pas de problème. Go to the website parisforseniors.com and initiate contact. Fill out an inquiry sheet profiling yourself and specifying what you’d like to see; better still, arrange for an interview over Zoom. In a mere two weeks, Genevieve and her entourage will design a flexible agenda taking all of your needs into account.
It’s hard to find any circumstance the company has considered a challenge. When a 96-year-old Australian wanted to paint at the side of the Seine as she had back in her student days, Paris for Seniors had her brushstroking boulevardiers along its banks. When a daughter wondered how her elderly mother would continue to receive her much-needed dialysis treatments while they both took in the sights, that too was accommodated. Says Spicer in the warm, winning voice she honed as a bilingual media talent, “We want our clients to be able to push the ‘Easy’ button. No having to be part of a large tour forced to stand all the time, no negotiating cobblestone streets, no constant searches for bathrooms.”
Instead, the company offers its clients a menu of services: from airport pick-up and drop-off to cross-city transportation provided by an English-speaking driver; from hotel and restaurant recommendations based on deep insider knowledge to private visits to major attractions; from personal guides sparing visitors the hop-on-hop-off experience to the provision of a constant companion, saving solo travelers fears of being abandoned or lost.
Genevieve works with official guides endorsed by the state. As she notably adds, “They’re also masters in TLC; they’re patient and helpful. Plus, they have free access to all the museums, so they can set their own visitation terms.” There’s also the aforementioned Mon Ami option, offering a round-the-clock camarade. Sometimes, that’s Genevieve’s eldest daughter, Gracie, though she’s making plans for the next stage of her studies.
