Keith Spicer has lived in Paris since 1996, the first four years as an associate of Ernst & Young specializing in Internet issues. During this time, he has been a visiting lecturer at the Sorbonne, mainly on national Internet strategies.

He is also a frequent speaker and writer on French affairs, as well as on the role of media in international conflict and peace-building. In 2001 he founded, and has run as director, the Institute for Media, Peace and Security of the UN-linked University for Peace. As of September 2006, he remains a faculty member and assists the University with advice and occasional teaching on media, conflict and peace. His main activity is now writing books, and regular columns for The Ottawa Citizen and the Paris monthly Illisos: la liberté en action, of which he is a member of the editorial board.

Living almost next door to the Jardin du Luxembourg -- a haunt of his student days -- he continues to entertain the fantasy that Canada, and perhaps a tolerable version of the meaning of life, may well be hiding among the trees and fountains and statues of that magic place.