France disinvites South Africa from G7 Summit after pressure from US

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has been disinvited by France to the G7 summit in the French town of Evian in June because of US pressure, the South African presidency told AFP Thursday.

“We’ve learnt that due to sustained pressure, France has had to withdraw its invitation to South Africa to attend the G7 meeting,” Vincent Magwenya, spokesperson to the president, told AFP.

“We are told that the Americans threatened to boycott the G7 if South Africa was invited,” he said

Tensions between South Africa and the United States reached an all time low in November las year after US President Donald Trump announced that South Africa would be barred from attending the next G20 summit.

Trump said he would block South Africa’s participation in the 2026 G20 summit – set to be hosted in Miami – and halt all financial support to the country.

His remarks followed South Africa’s refusal to symbolically pass the G20 presidency to a senior US Embassy representative at the close of this year’s summit in Johannesburg.

“The United States did not attend the G20 in South Africa because the South African government refuses to acknowledge or address the horrific human rights abuses endured by Afrikaners and other descendants of Dutch, French and German settlers,” Trump posted.

“To put it more bluntly, they are killing white people and randomly allowing their farms to be taken from them… At the conclusion of the G20, South Africa refused to hand off the G20 Presidency to a senior representative from our US Embassy, who attended the closing ceremony. Therefore, at my direction, South Africa will NOT be receiving an invitation to the 2026 G20, which will be hosted in the great city of Miami, Florida next year.”

“South Africa has demonstrated to the world that they are not a country worthy of membership anywhere, and we are going to stop all payments and subsidies to them, effective immediately,” Trump added.

AFP