By Michel Rose
PARIS, March 26 (Reuters) – French officials on Thursday denied excluding South Africa from the list of invitees to the G7 leaders’ summit in June due to pressure from Washington, saying Kenya had been invited instead ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s visit there later this year.
France announced earlier that it will host the leaders of India, South Korea, Brazil and Kenya at the summit to be held in Evian-les-Bains.
South Africa, a regular guest at past G7 summits, said the French embassy in Pretoria had communicated the decision to the government about two weeks ago, saying the U.S. had threatened to boycott the summit if South Africa was invited.
“We’ve accepted the French decision and appreciate the pressure they’ve been subjected to,” said Vincent Magwenya, a spokesperson for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Asked at a briefing whether South Africa had been excluded on the U.S.’s request, a French official said this was not the case and that France had decided to invite Kenya this time round. Macron is due to visit Kenya in May for a two-day Africa-France summit.
U.S. President Donald Trump has criticised South Africa’s foreign policy and domestic race laws during his second term, boycotted last year’s G20 summit in Johannesburg and excluded South Africa from G20 meetings this year.
The White House and the U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
IRAN CRISIS MAY OVERSHADOW LONG-TERM GOALS
France had been hoping to focus the G7 on preventing a “massive financial crisis” by urging summit absentee China to boost domestic demand and reduce its destabilising exports, and by calling on the U.S. to curb its deficits and on Europe to produce more and save less.
Those long-term goals may be overshadowed, however, by more immediate pressures, with the summit unfolding against the backdrop of an energy shock caused by the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran, while the relevance of the G7 itself is being increasingly questioned.
“We don’t know where the Iran crisis will be by June,” an adviser to President Emmanuel Macron said. “However it evolves, we will have to address its energy and economic consequences.”
China will not attend the summit on June 15-17 and continues to question the legitimacy of the G7 as a “club of rich countries”, French officials said.
France, which had tried to invite Beijing according to diplomatic sources, will “engage” China through separate channels, an official said, adding that it was also in China’s interest to avoid a confrontation.
“The risk for China is to see global markets, and European markets, closing off to it,” the official said.
The countries invited instead are all democracies and market economies that play by the rules of international cooperation, he added.
Adding to the uncertainty is whether U.S. President Donald Trump, whose use of tariff threats has rattled allies and rivals alike, not to mention the world’s markets, will attend.
“I won’t make any predictions, but if Trump doesn’t come, it also makes sense – it’s a new international reality and we need to organise ourselves accordingly,” the official said.
(Reporting by Michel Rose; Additional reporting by Nellie Peyton in Johannesburg; Editing by Peter Graff and Hugh Lawson)
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