French president is first foreign head of state to visit Arctic territory since US president made comments
Emmanuel Macron has criticised Donald Trump’s threats to take over Greenland as he became the first foreign head of state to visit the vast, mineral-rich Arctic territory since the US president began making explicit threats to annex it.
“I don’t think that’s what allies do,” Macron said as he arrived in the Danish autonomous territory for a highly symbolic visit aimed at conveying “France’s and the EU’s solidarity” with Greenland on his way to a summit of G7 leaders in Canada.
The French president said: “It’s important that Denmark and the Europeans commit themselves to this territory, where the strategic stakes are very high and whose territorial integrity must be respected.”
Trump has said repeatedly the US needs Greenland, which is strategically located at the crossroads between the Atlantic and the Arctic, for US national security reasons, and has refused to rule out the use of force to secure it.
