France and allies discuss response to possible US invasion of Greenland

France has said it is working with allies on how to react if the US were to invade Greenland, amid mounting tension over Donald Trump’s escalating threats to take over the Arctic territory.The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said the subject would be discussed at a meeting with the German and Polish foreign ministers on Wednesday.“We want to take action, but we want to do so together with our European partners,” he told France Inter radio.Denmark has said that should the US – a fellow Nato ally – invade or seize Greenland, which is part of the Danish kingdom, it would mark the end of the western military alliance and “post-second world war security”.On Tuesday, after one of Trump’s leading aides suggested the US may be willing to seize control of the Arctic territory by force, European leaders rallied around Denmark and Greenland with a rare rebuke to the White House, declaring that Greenland “belongs to its people”.Despite this, on Tuesday night, the White House said that Trump and his team were looking at “a range of options” to acquire Greenland, including using the US military, which it said was “always an option”.But Barrot said that in a phone call on Tuesday, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, had told him that he had “ruled out the possibility of an invasion” of Greenland.“I myself was on the phone yesterday with US secretary of state, Marco Rubio … who confirmed that this was not the approach taken,” he said.Trump has long expressed an interest in acquiring Greenland. But in recent days, after the US military operation in Venezuela on Saturday in which troops removed the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration’s rhetoric – and, subsequently, international tensions – have ramped up to new heights, putting the survival of Nato into question.On Tuesday night, the Danish parliament held an extraordinary meeting to discuss the unprecedented situation.Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the Danish foreign minister, and his Greenlandic counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, are seeking an urgent meeting with Rubio.“We would like to add some nuance to the conversation,” Rasmussen said on social media. “The shouting match must be replaced by a more sensible dialogue. Now.”Trump has claimed that Greenland is “full of Chinese and Russian ships” and that Denmark is incapable of defending Greenland, which the president has said is vital for US national security.But Rasmussen said after the extraordinary meeting that the US was giving a false representation of what was happening in Greenland.“The image that is being painted of Russian and Chinese ships right inside the Nuuk fjord and massive Chinese investments being made is not correct,” he said.The situation, Rasmussen said, was “based on a misreading of what is up and what is down”, adding: “We are looking after the kingdom.”Denmark’s defence minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, disputed US claims that the country was not doing enough to protect Greenland. “We have invested close to 100bn [Danish kroner] (£11.6bn) in security capabilities,” he said.