France Warns Donald Trump Against Threatening EU Sovereign Borders

The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, told France Inter radio: “There is no question of the EU letting other nations in the world, whoever they may be, attack its sovereign borders.”

He added that while he did not believe the US “would invade” Greenland “we have entered an era that is seeing the return of the law of the strongest”.

In an hour-long press conference on Tuesday, Trump refused to rule out using military force to take the Panama Canal and Greenland and suggested he intended to use “economic force” to make Canada part of the US.

His eldest son Donald Trump Jr flew to Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, on what he called a private visit shortly after the comments. He remained a few hours and said he did not intend to meet government officials.

Last month Trump, who takes office on 20 January, said the US control of Greenland was an “absolute necessity” for America’s “economic security”.

Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom Denmark but granted home rule in 1979, has informed Trump it is not for sale.

Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, and Múte Egede, Greenland’s PM, have both said it is for Greenlanders to decide their future.

“If the European Commission does not know how to protect us against this interference or these threats of interference then it must give member states, including France, the ability to protect itself,” Barrot said, urging the EU to resist threats from Elon Musk against a number of European leaders, notably Germany’s social democrat chancellor, Olaf Scholz.