France on Thursday denied that South Africa was left off the guest list for this year’s Group of Seven summit because of pressure from Washington, after Pretoria said it had been told the United States objected to its participation.
The dispute has added a diplomatic edge to preparations for the June gathering in the French spa town of Evian-les-Bains, where President Emmanuel Macron hopes to rally major economies around a response to mounting global economic and geopolitical instability.
French officials said the decision to invite Kenya instead of South Africa was linked to Paris’s diplomatic calendar and not to any demand from the United States. Donald Trump’s administration also backed that version of events, saying the choice had been made collectively among G7 members.
France has invited the leaders of India, South Korea, Brazil and Kenya to attend the summit, which runs from June 15 to 17. South Africa, which has frequently been included as a guest at previous G7 meetings, was not among those selected this year.
Pretoria, however, offered a sharply different account. Vincent Magwenya, spokesperson for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, said the French embassy had informed the government around two weeks ago that Washington had threatened to boycott the summit if South Africa was invited. He said South Africa had accepted the decision while recognising the pressure France had allegedly faced.
Asked directly whether South Africa had been excluded at the request of the United States, a French official rejected the claim and said France had opted to invite Kenya this time. The official pointed to Macron’s planned trip to Kenya in May for a two-day Africa-France summit, suggesting the invitation reflected broader diplomatic engagement with Nairobi.
A White House official echoed the French position, saying Paris had expressed its wish in January to invite one African country and that, after consultations among G7 members, Kenya was chosen. The official added that the United States welcomed Kenya’s participation, though did not directly address South Africa’s complaint.
The episode unfolds against increasingly strained ties between Washington and Pretoria. Trump has repeatedly criticised South Africa’s foreign policy and domestic race legislation during his second term, and Reuters reported that he boycotted last year’s G20 summit in Johannesburg while also excluding South Africa from G20 meetings this year.
More Read
Beyond the row over invitations, France is trying to frame the summit around deeper structural economic concerns. French officials say they want the G7 to focus on averting what one adviser described as a potential “massive financial crisis”, including by pressing China to stimulate domestic demand and reduce excess exports, urging the United States to rein in fiscal deficits, and calling on Europe to invest and produce more.
But those ambitions risk being eclipsed by immediate geopolitical shocks. French officials acknowledged that the summit is likely to be dominated by the fallout from the Iran crisis, including an energy shock, tensions within the transatlantic alliance and broader questions over the relevance of the G7 itself in a more fragmented world order.
France had also explored the possibility of inviting China, according to Reuters, but Chinese officials declined and continue to cast the G7 as a “club of rich countries.” Paris now says it will try to engage Beijing through separate channels.
Another major uncertainty hanging over the summit is whether Trump himself will attend. French officials said they could not predict his decision, but acknowledged that even his absence would be emblematic of the new international landscape the summit is being forced to navigate.
For France, the diplomatic spat over South Africa is an early reminder that even before leaders arrive in Evian, the summit is already being shaped by rivalries that may prove harder to manage than the agenda itself.
