"Greenland is not to be sold and not to be taken": The small crowd gathered on the docks in Nuuk, the capital of the Danish autonomous territory of Greenland, applauded Emmanuel Macron's statement defending the "territorial integrity" of the territory, which Donald Trump has been coveting. After his brief visit to the island on Sunday, June 15, the French president held a press conference, alongside Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen.

A few hundred people gathered behind journalists at the conference, surrounding the three podiums that had been set up on the waterfront. "Viva Macron," shouted passersby on the pier, where the sun had just appeared for the first time that day. "You are not alone," the president told them: "The situation in Greenland is clearly a wake-up call for all the Europeans."

Trump's shadow loomed over the event, after he had threatened to seize control of this vast frozen desert island, and not ruled out using force to do so. "That's not what allies do," Macron said as soon as he stepped off the plane, while his hosts thanked him for making the trip. That very morning, just before the French delegation landed, the first direct commercial flight between New York and Nuuk arrived on the island: a symbolic gesture, at a time when the United States has made claims on the territory, though it still remains to be seen if Trump's threats will ever be followed up with actions.

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