French president touches down in Greenland

French President Emmanuel Macron touched down in Greenland on Sunday, for an official visit designed to bolster European support for the Danish territory, which is still batting away advances from the Trump administration to acquire it for the United States.

Macron is the first foreign leader to visit the resource-rich island since US President Donald Trump began his campaign to buy or annex Greenland, which he insists the US needs for national security purposes.

Asked about Trump’s ambitions as he arrived in Greenland, Macron is cited by Reuters as saying: “I don’t think that’s what allies do… it’s important that Denmark and the Europeans commit themselves to this territory, which has very high strategic stakes and whose territorial integrity must be respected.”

A source at the Élysée Palace said ahead of the visit that the French president’s trip had a “dimension of European solidarity and one of strengthening sovereignty and territorial integrity,” without mentioning the Trump administration’s threats to purchase Greenland, or take it by force.

Additionally, Macron’s visit would focus on Arctic security, climate change and Greenland’s economic development, the source added.

uring his time on the world’s biggest island, the French leader will tour a glacier, a hydroelectric power station and a Danish warship moored near the semiautonomous territory’s capital, Nuuk, per the Élysée.

“The deeps are not for sale, any more than Greenland is for sale, any more than Antarctica or the high seas are for sale,” Macron said on June 9 as he opened a United Nations conference on the oceans in Nice, France.