As G7 leaders gather in Évian in June, a pressing question emerges: how do we build fertile, lasting partnerships in an international context that is increasingly fractured? La Francophonie can offer part of the answer. The International Organization of La Francophonie brings together 90 states and governments, representing 396 million French speakers – now the world’s fourth most spoken language – and approximately 1.2 billion people. They account for 16.5% of global gross domestic product, 20% of world trade and 14% of the planet’s energy and mineral reserves. These figures represent an economic and geopolitical reality of direct interest to the G7 – especially given that France’s G7 presidency has placed rebalancing global trade at the very heart of its agenda. This has also been the OIF’s ambition for several years, and here our two agendas converge.
A high-potential francophone economy
Confined too long to its cultural and linguistic missions, La Francophonie has become a fully fledged economic actor. Since 2022, the OIF has launched and multiplied economic and trade missions – from Cotonou to Phnom Penh, via Kigali, Quebec, Bucharest and Beirut, among others – generating contracts for small and medium-sized enterprises across the francophone world. More than 2,000 companies from some 30 countries have participated, resulting in over 5,000 business appointments. The next mission will be in October 2026 in Djibouti.
Our role is not to substitute for countries or markets, but to act as a catalyst, facilitator and sometimes mediator in negotiations. As global trade fragments and tensions intensify, the G7 and the OIF can help structure lasting partnerships between actors from the Global North and South – built not on aid, but on co-construction and mutual benefit.
The digital world: sovereignty and equity
French is the fourth language on the internet, yet has still to claim its full place in the digital space. Artificial intelligence, algorithms and simultaneous translation shape what is visible and audible. These tools hold tremendous potential for the development of our societies – provided they reflect the diversity of the real world. AI systems, trained on massive corpora, reflect existing imbalances: certain languages, cultures and realities are overrepresented, with others largely absent. Developing at breakneck speed, those systems are fed predominantly by English-language content, which marginalises speakers of other languages, deepening the divides in access to information and the digital economy that we are seeking to reduce. I brought this battle to the United Nations to ensure that all linguistic communities are included in the Global Digital Compact. I bring it today to the G7: the governance of AI must be multilingual, or it will not be fair.
Peace and stability: conditions for development
There is no sustainable development without peace, and no peace without the tools to build and preserve it. Faced with a growing number of constitutional challenges, the OIF has chosen engagement over isolation. The Mechanism for Monitoring and Evaluating the Situation of Suspended Countries, adopted in 2024 by the Permanent Council of La Francophonie, embodies this new approach: rather than closing the door on countries in crisis by unilaterally suspending them, we now seek to accompany them back towards constitutional order, through establishing concrete steps and, above all, maintaining dialogue. For example, this support led to lifting Guinea’s suspension in 2024. In Gabon, the OIF deployed an electoral mission in 2025, welcoming the transition authorities’ efforts. This is not complacency: it is diplomacy in the service of the people, who are always the first to pay the price of instability.
This conviction will be central to the 20th Francophonie Summit in Phnom Penh in November 2026, whose theme will call for this collective reinvestment in stability as the first condition for development.
We must not let our youth down
Let us be honest and clear-eyed: the multilateral system has too often lost sight of its primary mission – to serve the people. This has contributed to a growing distrust of international organisations, and the OIF is no exception. No international institution today escapes the widening gap between the expectations of people and the responses they provide. This reality compels us to change course. If we invest seriously today in the education, economic inclusion and civic participation of our youth – who ask only to be involved – they will be the first guarantors of our shared values and the best assurance that the results achieved today will endure tomorrow.
This is why the OIF has, for several years, been strengthening its high-impact programmes on youth employability. Work is a vector of dignity, and economic inclusion has a cascading effect on other major challenges – forced migration, radicalisation, political instability – that affect both the Global South and the North.
It is on this condition – a genuine and sincere commitment to those who own the future – that the multilateral system will truly live up to its ambitions. But this commitment requires changing methods: seeking financing where it exists, including in the private sector; building partnerships founded on mutual benefit rather than aid; designing and investing in digital tools that reflect the diversity of the world; and choosing dialogue over exclusion. This is what La Francophonie proposes to the G7 leaders assembled in Évian: not yet another declaration of intent, but a different way of doing things – hand in hand with the Global South, with our youth, and, above all, up to the challenges we all share
