Emmanuel Macron has criticised Donald Trump’s threats to take over Greenland as he turned the primary international head of state to go to the huge, mineral-rich Arctic territory because the US president started making specific threats to annex it.
“I don’t assume that’s what allies do,” Macron stated as he arrived within the Danish autonomous territory for a extremely symbolic go to aimed toward conveying “France’s and the EU’s solidarity” with Greenland on his option to a summit of G7 leaders in Canada.
The French president stated: “It’s vital that Denmark and the Europeans commit themselves to this territory, the place the strategic stakes are very excessive and whose territorial integrity have to be revered.”
Trump has stated repeatedly the US wants Greenland, which is strategically positioned on the crossroads between the Atlantic and the Arctic, for US nationwide safety causes, and has refused to rule out the usage of pressure to safe it.
Polls present the overwhelming majority of Greenland’s 57,000 individuals need independence from Denmark however to not develop into a part of the US. The Danish authorities has stated Greenland “is just not on the market” and solely Greenlanders can decide their future.
Macron’s six-hour go to was “a sign in itself” and got here on the request of each Denmark and Greenland, his workplace stated. It started with talks with the Danish and Greenlandic prime ministers, Mette Frederiksen and Jens-Frederik Nielsen, on a Danish naval frigate.
The French president was additionally on account of go to a glacier to see the consequences of world heating, and to debate learn how to embrace Greenland in EU motion to assist growth whereas “respecting its sovereignty”. A deliberate go to to a hydroelectric plant was cancelled.
Macron stated earlier than the go to that it was aimed toward stopping additional “preying” on the territory. In March, the US vice-president, JD Vance, visited the Pituffik US navy base on the island, criticising Denmark for not having “finished a superb job by the individuals of Greenland” and alleging Copenhagen had uncared for the territory’s safety.
Pituffik, on the shortest route for missiles fired from Russia on the US, is important to Washington’s missile defence system; whereas Greenland’s strategic significance has risen amid a race for uncommon earths and as melting ice opens up new transport routes.
The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, final week appeared to acknowledge that the Pentagon had developed plans to take over Greenland by pressure if crucial however refused to reply repeated questions concerning the topic at a congressional listening to.
The Wall Road Journal reported final month that company officers beneath the US nationwide intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, have been wanting into Greenland’s independence motion and sentiment about US useful resource extraction there.
Frederiksen made a number of visits to Paris after Trump’s threats towards Greenland, which in contrast to Denmark is just not an EU member however has an affiliation settlement with the bloc. Copenhagen has positioned orders for French-made surface-to-air missiles.
Florian Vidal of the Paris-based Ifri thinktank stated that for Denmark, lengthy one in all Washington’s most loyal allies in Europe, enlisting the assist of the EU’s solely nuclear energy was a option to undertaking onerous energy in the direction of a all of the sudden extra predatory US.
Vidal stated: “The Trump administration’s extra aggressive posture makes the French imaginative and prescient of Europe, one that’s extra autonomous, seem extra cheap for Denmark. From a Nordic standpoint, France is a navy energy that counts.”
Nielsen stated in April that US statements about Greenland to this point had been “disrespectful” and that the island would “by no means, ever be a chunk of property that may be purchased by simply anybody”.
He stated final week that France’s assist had been evident “because the first statements about taking our land emerged” and was each “crucial and gratifying”.
