| Summit Name: | 1st G6 summit |
| Country: | France |
| Dates: | 15–17 November 1975 |
| Precedes: | 2nd G7 summit |
The 1st G6 summit took place on 15–17 November 1975, in Rambouillet, France. The venue for the summit meetings was the Château de Rambouillet near Paris.[1]
The Group of Six (G6) was an unofficial forum which brought together the heads of the richest industrialized countries: France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[2] This summit, and the others which would follow, were not meant to be linked formally with wider international institutions; and in fact, a kind of frustrated rebellion against the stiff formality of other international meetings was an element in the genesis of cooperation between France's president and West Germany's chancellor as they conceived the first summit of the G6.[3]
Later summits in what could become a continuing series of annual meetings were identified as the Group of Seven (G7) and Group of Eight (G8) summits — but this informal gathering was the one which set that process in motion.
This was an unofficial forum (retreat) for the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and a chance for them to get to know one another. It was important to note that each of them had attained office the previous year due to unforeseeable circumstances.
These summit participants considered themselves representative of the "core" industrialized countries forum:[4] [1]
| Core G6 members Host state and leader are shown in bold text. | |||||
| Member | Represented by | Title | achieved office | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | France | Valéry Giscard d'Estaing | President | May 1974 | |
| West Germany | Helmut Schmidt | Chancellor | May 1974 | ||
 | Italy | Aldo Moro | Prime Minister | November 1974 | |
 | Japan | Takeo Miki | Prime Minister | December 1974 | |
| United Kingdom | Harold Wilson | Prime Minister | March 1974 | ||
 | United States | Gerald Ford | President | August 1974 | |
The summit was intended as a venue for resolving differences among its members. As a practical matter, the summit was also conceived as an opportunity for its members to give each other mutual encouragement in the face of difficult economic decisions.[3] Rambouillet had no easy answers to what was then the most serious recession since the 1930s; but the main themes of what would later become known as the "1st G7/G8 summit" will remain for decades on the world's agenda—avoiding protectionism, energy dependency and boosting growth.[5] [6]
Issues which were discussed at this summit included: