France has warned Donald Trump against threatening the European Union‘s ‘sovereign borders’ after the president-elect refused to rule out military action to take control of Greenland.

Trump has ramped up calls for the US to either purchase or stage a takeover of the ‘strategically located’ nation, which is an autonomous territory of EU member Denmark. 

‘There is no question of the EU letting other nations in the world, whoever they may be, attack its sovereign borders,’ French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told the France Inter radio station.

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’.

‘We are a strong continent, we need to strengthen ourselves further,’ he went on, warning that Europe needs to ‘wake up’ to the reality of an increasingly insecure world and ‘reinforce ourselves, militarily, in competition’.

Barrot added that he believed that the United States is ‘inherently not imperialistic’ and said he ‘did not believe’ that it is changing. Trump has questioned whether Denmark has any legal right or ‘interest’ to Greenland, stating yesterday: ‘People really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it, but if they do, they should give it up, because we need it for national security.’

Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark and has been part of it for 600 years. The Danish government has control of Greenland’s foreign and economic policy, but the territory left the EU in 1985 following a referendum.

The US has a military base there given its strategic position as the shortest oceanic crossroads between North America and Europe. 

The island also has a large supply of valuable rare earth minerals – like uranium – not found in the US.

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