French ambassador says South Africa should attend all G20 summits

It was a controversial move from Donald Trump: the US president barred South Africa from attending the G20 summit at his Miami area club in December.

Then, South Africa was not invited to participate by France at the G7 summit in June.

French ambassador to South Africa, David Martinon, has called for the country to not be excluded from G20 meetings.

“France being also a founding member of the G20 we consider of course that South Africa is a full-fledged member of the G20 and should be part of all of its meetings,” Martinon said.

“As for the G7 I can only refer to what President Ramaphosa said about it that, if I remember it’s something like ‘you can’t be de-invited from a forum you don’t belong to’. But that’s his words ,” the ambassador said.

France denied allegations it was bending to pressure from Washington, insisting it decided to invite Kenya on this occasion.