Yet again, a G-8 summit has been in the news not because of what the politicians attending have done but because of violent protests by anti-capitalist demonstrators. Ever since the WTO fiasco in Seattle in 1999, it seems that no major international economic gathering is without a group of anarchic, anti-capitalist protesters. Inevitably G-8 summits — as the citizens of Geneva found out to their cost on Sunday — have become uniquely prone to this trend, drawing the leaders of the leading economic powers. Except that this year’s summit is not even taking place in Geneva. It is happening in Evian, further along Lake Geneva in France. Not that that worried the protesters. They were determined to do damage; the fact that Switzerland is not even a member of the G-8 was of no interest to them. They would have done the same, given the chance, if they had been forced to make their protests in Johannesburg or Jakarta.

It is time to rethink the G-8. The accompanying, violent protests are not going to go away. They are now a fixed feature. Countermeasures do not work. After the disastrous Genoa summit two years ago, with its running streets battles between police and protesters, the French authorities thought they were being smart by throwing an iron cordon around Evian. All they did was to transfer the trouble elsewhere.

It would be easy to be cynical about the G-8, to say that it is just a circus where nothing of any real importance is decided, and should be scrapped. That would be wrong. There is much in the policies of G-8 countries that provokes concern, which is why they attract such a patchwork of protesters who have nothing in common. But scrapping it is not going to solve any of their gripes. The G-8 needs to be altered rather than scrapped. It is the circus element that is wrong, not the meetings themselves.

We along with the rest of the world are deeply antagonized by the super-rich nations’ assumption that they can decide the world’s fate.

Nonetheless we are always saying what they should be doing. We would be the first to complain if they did not speak to each other. Realistically speaking, they need to get together to discuss global problems.

But they need to get together without the razzmatazz, without the media in mass attendance, without the accompanying hordes of political advisers, NGOs and lobbying groups.

Last year, Canada took a step in the right direction with a slimmed-down summit in the remote village resort of Kananaskis to deter protesters. But summits need to be slimmed down much further and always held in an out-of-the-way, preferably undisclosed location. Ring-fencing a venue is no solution.