Politico quoted French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot as saying that his country had discussed the possible deployment of troops to Greenland with Denmark in order to protect it from Trump’s claims, but Copenhagen didn’t want to move forward with Paris’ proposal. He then shrugged off the scenario of the US invading to make it seem like the aforementioned disclosure and its outcome were no big deal. It therefore appeared as though he only wanted to emphasize that France will protect the EU’s borders.
The reality though is that France won’t fight the US over Greenland if it came to that. First, it would destroy NATO’s unity, which could lead to the second consequence of the US pulling out of the bloc and leaving the Europeans on their own to face Russia. Third, France would certainly lose, so the fourth point is that there’s no reason risking all this for Denmark’s sake. And finally, Greenlanders might ultimately vote for independence, thus making France’s intervention a neocolonial war with the US.
As was assessed in late December, “The Panama Canal & Greenland Are Trump’s For The Taking If He Really Wants Them”, but it remains to be seen if he’s willing to use military force to that end or if his claims to both are just a negotiating tactic to respectively expel Chinese influence and keep it at bay. There’s also the possibility that he wants to turn them into protectorates, whether formally or otherwise, with unclear privileges for American citizens, companies, and/or the military.
In any case, these are important enough imperatives for the US to seriously consider the use of force if necessary depending on how negotiations over each might go, which stands in stark contrast to France’s interest in Greenland. France only wanted to reaffirm the importance of protecting the EU’s borders and present itself as the bloc’s leader amidst its traditional rival with Germany in this regard. It lacks the political will to actually make good on this pledge against the US if ever requested by Denmark to do so.
What this entire episode illustrates though is that Trump’s claim to Greenland has prompted panic among the Europeans. They never expected anything of the sort to happen and are now at a loss for how to respond in the event that he applies more pressure upon Denmark. No matter how highly some European countries like France still think of themselves, the fact of the matter is that they’re still the US’ junior partners and even outright vassals in most cases. They depend more on the US than the inverse.
For that reason, it’s highly unlikely that any European troops in Greenland would do anything more than fire into the air in the event that Trump authorizes the military to seize that island, since using lethal force against American troops would spark an unprecedented intra-NATO crisis. The power dynamics between them are such that the European members of the bloc have become convinced that they need the US to protect it against Russia and therefore won’t risk being abandoned by the US over Greenland.
It also shouldn’t be forgotten that France never ended up conventionally intervening in Ukraine last year despite threatening to do so. That’s because it couldn’t secure Article 5 guarantees from the US. Since France obeyed the much weaker Biden Administration and showed that it wasn’t really as gung-ho about fighting Russia as it made it seem, it’ll predictably obey the much stronger Trump Administration and not dare to militarily challenge it over Greenland, which is much less significant for the EU than Ukraine is.
