In a sign of Greenland’s growing importance, French President Emmanuel Macron is visiting the Arctic island on Sunday, in what experts say is a show of European unity and a signal to Donald Trump.
France’s president is the first high-profile leader to be invited by Greenland’s new prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, says BBC.
Stepping foot in the capital Nuuk this morning, Macron will be met with chilly and blustery weather. Nuuk is a small city of less than 20,000 people, and the arrival of a world leader and his entourage, is a major event.
Talks will focus on North Atlantic and Arctic security as well as climate change, economic development and critical minerals, before Macron continues to the G7 summit in Canada.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is also attending and called the French president’s visit “another concrete testimony of European unity” amid a “difficult foreign policy situation in recent months”.
For several months Greenland, which is a semi-autonomous Danish territory with 56,000 people, has come under intense pressure as US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he wants to acquire the vast mineral-rich island, citing American security as the primary reason and not ruling out using force.
France was among the first nations to speak up against Trump, even floating an offer of deploying troops, which Denmark declined. Only a few days ago at the UN’s Oceans conference in Nice, Macron stressed that “the ocean is not for sale, Greenland is not for sale, the Arctic and no other seas are for sale” – words which were swiftly welcomed by Nielsen.
“France has supported us since the first statements about taking our country came out,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “It is both necessary and gratifying.”
However, opposition leader Pele Broberg thinks Greenland should have hosted bilateral talks with France alone. “We welcome any world leader, anytime,” he says “Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like a visit for Greenland this time. It looks like a visit for Denmark.”
Relations between the US and Denmark have grown increasingly fractious. Most recently, at a congressional hearing on Thursday, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to suggest under tense questioning that the Pentagon had prepared “contingency” plans for taking Greenland by force “if necessary”.
Denmark, however, has treaded cautiously. Last week its parliament green-lighted a controversial bill allowing US troops to be stationed on Danish soil and is spending another $1.5bn (£1.1bn) to boost Greenland’s defense. That heightened military presence was on show this weekend as a Danish naval frigate sailed around Nuuk Fjord and helicopters circled over the town.