G7 ministers land in Paris to squeeze US on Ukraine and Iran

G7 foreign ministers open two days of talks in Paris on Monday, and Europe is arriving with a list. Top of it: pushing Washington toward a fair settlement for Ukraine and steering it away from fresh military strikes on Iran. The group's seven members — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States — are back at the table with much the same worries they carried into their last gathering in March.

All eyes are on US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who plans to stay for both days this time after showing up for only one in March. It is his first trip abroad since the midterms, and US media already floats him as a possible successor to President Donald Trump. The timing matters: Washington takes over the G7 presidency from France in 2027.

The Paris meeting overlaps with US-mediated talks between Moscow and Kyiv set for Tuesday and Wednesday in Abu Dhabi, aimed at ending the war. Europe's fear is that Ukraine gets boxed into a bad deal. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told RTL radio that Europeans will be represented and that France will be in Abu Dhabi for those talks, according to France 24.

Trump has fuelled European nerves by teasing a "very big" deal with Russia that would cover not just Ukraine but "all of Europe". His envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner said Washington is working on what he called a broader European security architecture to lock in lasting peace — an idea Europe has met with scepticism before.

On Iran, Trump still won't rule out new strikes, including at Pickaxe Mountain, a suspected nuclear site Tehran insists is nothing of the sort. Europeans want a resolution and normal shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. "We're dealing with them now," Trump said Friday. "They want to make a deal very badly."

The gathering was long slated for Marseille but got shifted to Paris at the last minute, with only scheduling reasons given. Marseille still gets a piece of the action: Barrot said the city will host the launch of a network of 14 global ports teaming up against drug trafficking. On the sidelines, France's finance ministry hosts a Monday donor conference for the Chernobyl reactor dome, damaged in a Russian strike last year. About 500 million euros is needed; just over half is in, with spring 2027 as the target to close the gap, the ministry told AFP. Rubio brushed off questions about the Republicans' midterm drubbing — "It is not uncommon to have a division of power in this country" — and said he isn't worried about protests in France.