Jacques Serais, edited by Laura Laplaud / Photo credit: MICHAEL KAPPELER / DPA / DPA PICTURE-ALLIANCE VIA AFP 06:59, May 18, 2023

G7 leaders are meeting this week in Hiroshima (western Japan) to toughen their tone against Russia 15 months after its invasion of Ukraine and adopt a common line vis-à-vis the Chinese superpower. This summit will be marked by the weight of history: on August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

The three-day summit, starting Friday, of major industrialized democracies will cover everything from energy to artificial intelligence, but the focus will be on loopholes allowing Moscow to mitigate the impact of G7 sanctions on its economy. A summit that will inevitably be impregnated by the weight of history: on August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. More than 140,000 deaths were recorded between August 6 and the end of December 1945.

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A city destroyed in an instant

Even before sitting around the table, the heads of state and government will visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. A place that can leave no one indifferent; As soon as you enter this museum, the sound of the blast of the bomb grabs you.

In a little less than 24 hours, Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak or Emmanuel Macron will be able to listen to this historical reminder with the help of an audio guide. "It's 8:15 a.m., an atomic bomb has just been dropped and exploded 600 meters above the city of Hiroshima. The life of this city was destroyed in an instant by the atomic bomb," it reads.

Objective: to make an impression

The leaders of this world will see with their own eyes the devastation that nuclear weapons can wreak. To realize it there are these vestiges, these everyday objects kept in this museum, like this garment worn at the time by a 13-year-old teenager. "The uniform you see was stuck to his skin because of his burns. The young man was only wearing a shoe when he was found, it is the one you see in the window, "details the voice of the audioguide.

Japan, the host country of this G7, wishes to make an impression in a particularly tense international context. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida invited the leaders of India, Brazil and Indonesia to the sidelines of the summit. It is a question of convincing these non-aligned states to take sides on Russia but also on China.