It’s not going to risk breaking up NATO, let alone over a war that it’ll certainly lose, no matter how tough its Foreign Minister is trying to sound as part of a ploy to present France as the EU’s leader. 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 […]