G7 2026 – France – Evian

France holds the G7 Presidency in 2026, and will convene the Leader’s Summit in June in Evian. France aims to return to the G7 to its original purpose, which is to serve as a ‘forum for major powers to respond to the economic challenges of our times’. For the French Presidency, the G7 can facilitate dialogue between emerging and major powers, and other committed stakeholders, to work together to ‘reduce global imbalances’ which affect the growth and development of all countries. For France, this goal is underlined by the view that ‘major economies have a particular duty to safeguard global financial stability and to build fair partnerships with developing countries’.

France’s priorities for its Presidency are:

• settling major geopolitical crises, including through G7 support to Ukraine and Ukrainians;
• childhood matters, from supporting development to online protection;
• the fight against organized crime and illegal flows;
• the new rules of play of global governance.
• strengthening the resilience of critical minerals value chains as a cross-cutting priority. 

Paris sees the G7 as playing a role of leadership and support to multilateral initiatives. It thus hopes to use its presidency as an opportunity to follow up on international summits that were hosted in France in 2025, including:

• the United Nations Conference to Support the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14 : Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development 
• the Nutrition for Growth Summit
• the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit

France takes over the G7 Presidency during a time where the Group has become deeply divided by the actions of Washington. Members are sceptical of Trump’s war with Iran. Many of the Group’s members are in NATO, which recently rejected Trump’s call to help him secure the Strait of Hormuz (more below). The war in the Middle East adds to the existing tension between the US and the rest of the G7 following the US’s antagonism towards Denmark over Greenland, and Trump’s close relationship with Russia. 

France’s emphasis on reasserting the G7’s role as a forum for dialogue is the French Presidency’s way of saying no to a ‘might is right’ approach, which it sees as leading to ‘subservience and bloc mentality, or moral posturing that condemns one to ‘marginalisation and powerlessness’. Much like previous G7 hosts, Canada, France is leaning into its status as a middle power, even though it may still hold onto its ambitions as a Great Power. Paris will not follow suit on the actions of powerful countries, particularly the US. However, it also understands that it cannot maintain any rules-based international order built on mutual interests without the cooperation and assistance of other powers. This was evident in the recent G7 Foreign Minister’s meeting, where French Minister of the Armed Forces, Catherin Vautrin, said that the war ‘is not ours’, and stressed that a diplomatic approach is ‘the only one that can guarantee a return to peace’. It is likely that France’s emphasis on mutually beneficial partnerships, with emphasis on transforming partnerships with developing countries, is also part of its strategy to navigate the weakening rules-based international order by building and bringing in the cooperation of emerging powers. 

However, news reports suggest that France cannot disengage from the influence of Great Powers, who still hold sway in international cooperation and multilateral forums for the time being. For the upcoming Leader’s Summit in June, France has invited South Korea, India, Brazil, and Kenya. South Africa has been a regular guest at the Leader’s Summit, in the past few years, but was a notable omission with Kenya being invited instead. A spokesperson for the South African presidency suggested that Pretoria had been excluded after initially being invited during the G20 Summit in Johannesburg due to ‘sustained pressure from the US’. France has denied this claim, citing that the decision to invite Kenya was to prepare for a France-Africa summit that will be held in May. South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa later downplayed the claim of US pressure on France, stating that there was ‘no pressure from any country’ and that it should not be a surprise if non-members do not get invited to the Summit. However, it should also not be a surprise if the US had some influence in South Africa’s absence from the G7. Washington, who takes over as hosts of the G20 – of which South Africa is a member and former host – has explicitly excluded South Africa from participation under the US’s G20 Presidency, and currently does not list the previous year’s hosts on the current G20 website. 

Evian Agenda

Financial and Trade Priorities:

The French Presidency has released its priorities under its Finance and Trade tracks.

The priorities of the Finance Track are:

1. Reducing macroeconomic imbalances and strengthening economic security:  France seeks to initiate discussions on imbalances in the economy, including differences in current account balances, industrial policies, and supply chain pressures, which it sees as producing unbalanced growth models that contribute to geopolitical and trade tensions. 
2. Shifting from support to partnerships, redefining the framework for international partnerships with developing countries in order to protect it: At a time of declining levels of official development assistance in the face of high demands for investments, the current development assistance model has been called into question by both donors and developing countries. France aims to redefine how international partnerships operate by transitioning from an assistance-based approach to mutually-beneficial partnerships.
3. Supporting growth that is balanced, sustainable and safeguards financial stability by ensuring a level playing field: the French Presidency has identified international tax reform, competition in the AI sector, and multilateral rules for exporting companies as its sub-priorities. In terms of ensuring the stability of the financial system, the sub-priorities here are combating financial crime, greater consideration for climate risks and extreme weather, analysing non-bank financial intermediaries, and anticipating the impacts of new technologies. 

The priorities of the Trade Track are:

1. Addressing excess production capacity 
2. Improving resilience and economic security 
3. Contributing to multilateral trading system reform
4. Promoting sustainable e-commerce

War in the Middle East

On February 28, 2026, Israel and the US launched a joint airstrike on Iran, targeting key figures in Iran’s leadership and killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and other high-level members of Iran’s leadership. This triggered retaliation from Iran, which proceeded to launch drones and ballistic missiles at military targets in Israel and US military bases in Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, the UAE and Kuwait, and the US allies, Oman and Saudi Arabia.

US President, Donald Trump, initially stated the goal of the airstrikes was regime change and ‘freedom of the people’. Analysts have been sceptical of the possibility of regime change throughout the US’s attacks on Iran, given the little and contradictory information available on what this regime change would entail and Trump’s initial lack of commitment to putting ‘boots on the ground’ in Iran. 

The US-military strikes have also been motivated by concerns of Iran’s nuclear enrichment. Although talks had taken place between the US and Iran regarding Iran’s nuclear program, Trump had been unhappy with the progress and indicated such on 27 February, and launched the airstrikes hours after. The US had already been speaking openly about attacking Iran following Tehran’s crackdown on its protestors. Since the initial strikes from the US and Israel, Iran continues to launch retaliatory strikes across the Gulf, while the US and Israel have carried out waves of attacks on Tehran and military and infrastructure sites belonging to the Iran government. This has implicated other parties in the Gulf region. The Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon had also launched retaliatory strikes in Israel, who then continued its war with the armed group. Elsewhere, Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen have launched attacks on Israel. Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, which has generated a global energy shock. 

The first Leaders meeting under France’s Presidency took place on 11 March 2026 and was centred on the economic consequences of the war in the Middle East, with the aim of ensuring ‘‘necessary coordination on this issue’, particularly with regards to the transport of vessels in the Middle East. Of particular concern for world leaders is the Strait of Hormuz, which serves as a key route for global oil transport, accounting for approximately 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas originating from the Gulf states. Although most of that oil is headed towards Asian states, other important goods pass through the strait, including medicine, technological supplies, and fertiliser – about one third of the total fertiliser traded. Countries dependent on imports from Gulf states – many of which are developing states – have resorted to measures ranging from fuel rationing, reducing work weeks, to closing schools and reducing business operations. The UK and Europe have also faced fuel price increases, while thousands of flights have been cancelled, and supermarkets are bracing themselves for food price increases. G7 leaders have been working on the possibility of escorting vessels through the Strait. G7 countries have also worked with the other member states of the International Energy Agency to release 400 million barrels of oil from their emergency reserves to address the disruption in oil markets.

On April 7, the US and Iran agreed to a ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan. The ceasefire will allow Washington and Teheran to negotiate a peace agreement. Peace talks have been unsuccessful so far, with both sides accusing the other of making unreasonable demands, while sporadic strikes have tested the ceasefire. Iran continues to fire at commercial ships attempting to cross the Strait of Hormuz, while the US has blocked Iranian ports to pressure Tehran into agreeing to a peace deal. Until this stalemate is addressed, there will continue to be massive uncertainty in the economy and make the war in the Middle East a major issue for the G7, bleeding into meetings on trade and development. 

Online child protection

The French Presidency has focused on incorporating the protection of minors online as part of its overall focus on AI regulation. France considers the protection of minors online to be a public health issue, as the content they are exposed to can have impacts on their mental health.  At the AI Impact Summit in Delhi in February 2026, a summit that forms part of a series of high-level summits on AI, President Emmanuel Macron called for stronger measures to protect children from ‘digital abuse’ and defended the EU’s attempts to regulate AI as part of these measures. Macron’s comments followed the ‘nudification’ trend that was popularised on the social media platform, X. This trend saw users commanding X’s AI tool, Grok, to strip the clothes from photos of women. Grok complied with numerous requests to generate increasingly sexualised images of women, and this extended to images of minors. Ministers in France had reported X to prosecutors. France looks to implement legislation banning social media access for children under the age of 15. The French National Assembly passed the bill, which will see it sent to the France’s Senate for approval. President Macron, who made the protection of children online a major priority in his re-election campaign, is pushing for the bill to come into effect before the start of the school year on 1 September 2026. Macron hopes to make France a global influencer on this issue. Paris launched an Expert Commission on Generative AI and called for contributions ‘to assess the risks and vulnerabilities generated by the general public uses of generative artificial intelligence with respect to minors’. Findings from this Commission will inform the work of the Digital Track under the French G7 Presidency, with the goal of developing a shared framework for strengthening children’s online safety.

Mutually beneficial partnerships

A major priority for France is the development of partnerships that go beyond the inefficiencies and limits of traditional official development assistance. In order to achieve this, France has called for the continued ‘reflection’ on development finance reform to ‘break away from the assistance mindset’. The first meeting of the Sherpas, who are key representatives from each G7 Member State, took place on 20 January 2026, and began the preparations for the final Leader’s Summit in June. The focus of this meeting was the renewal of international partnerships and the reduction of global macroeconomic balances. It was highlighted by the French Presidency as ‘an opportunity for a collective reset’. Since then, the G7 has specified four principles for a renewed approach to development: resilience, sovereignty, effectiveness, and coherence. These principles will be translated into three priorities: reaffirming solidarity with the most vulnerable countries; strengthening the capacities of partner countries; and improving the effectiveness of development assistance.