
Macron travels to Nuuk to stand with Greenland and Denmark against the US
In this context, it is hardly surprising that Macron is being welcomed with open arms in Greenland, where he is scheduled to stop on Sunday, June 15, en route to the G7 summit opening in Canada that same evening. The visit is unprecedented in several respects: Not only will it be the first time a French president has traveled to the island, but Macron will also be the first foreign head of state to visit Nuuk since Trump threatened annexation and the resulting diplomatic crisis between Copenhagen and Washington.
Notably, unlike US Vice President JD Vance and his spouse, who had to limit their March 28 visit to the Pituffik military base due to protests from local residents and political leaders opposed to their arrival, the French president was officially invited by Greenland's prime minister, who also extended the invitation to Denmark's head of government, Mette Frederiksen.

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LeMonde
5 minutes ago
- LeMonde
Top officers hold Ukraine talks after Trump rules out US troops
Top US and European military officers met in Washington on Tuesday, August 19, to discuss the mechanics of a possible Ukraine peace deal, after President Donald Trump ruled out sending American troops to back an agreement but suggested air support instead. In a flurry of diplomacy aimed at ending the war, Trump brought Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders to the White House on Monday, three days after his landmark encounter with Russia's Vladimir Putin in Alaska. But while Trump said Putin had agreed to meet Zelensky and accept some Western security guarantees for Ukraine, those promises have been met with extreme caution by Kyiv and Western capitals, and many details remain vague. As Western leaders push for an agreement, top US officer General Dan Caine held talks Tuesday evening with European military chiefs to discuss "best options for a potential Ukraine peace deal," a US defense official told AFP. The in-person talks precede a virtual meeting of military chiefs from NATO's 32 member countries on Wednesday, in which Caine is also scheduled to participate. Trump, long a fierce critic of the billions of dollars in US support to Ukraine since Russia invaded in 2022, earlier said that European nations were "willing to put people on the ground" to secure any settlement. "France and Germany, a couple of them, UK, they want to have boots on the ground," Trump said in a Fox News interview. "We're willing to help them with things, especially, probably, if you talk about by air." Asked what assurances Trump had that US boots would not be on the ground, he replied: "Well, you have my assurance and I'm president." Allies discuss next steps The White House later doubled down on Trump's statements – but gave few new details on either the summit or the security guarantees. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump "has definitively stated US boots will not be on the ground in Ukraine" and that the use of US air power was an "option and a possibility." Leavitt insisted that Putin had promised Trump he would meet Zelensky, and said top US officials were "coordinating" with Russia on a summit. Trump had dramatically interrupted his meeting with Zelensky and the Europeans at the White House on Monday to call the Russian leader. Allies have expressed doubts that Putin will go through with the meeting, but the Europeans are seizing on the possibility of a peace deal following the Trump talks. French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer brought together around 30 of Ukraine's allies known as the "Coalition of the Willing" for virtual consultations. Starmer told them coalition teams and US officials would meet in the coming days to "prepare for the deployment of a reassurance force if the hostilities ended," a Downing Street spokesperson said. Geneva, Budapest floated for summits Russia has warned that any solution must also protect its own "security interests" and has ruled out Ukraine joining NATO. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov added that any meeting between the leaders "must be prepared very thoroughly." Lavrov's comments, and Putin's offer of Moscow as a summit venue, reinforced European fears that Russia was once again stalling. Macron said he wanted the summit to take place in Geneva, a historic venue for peace talks. Switzerland said it was ready to offer immunity to Putin, who faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court over the war. Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz have both said the summit could take place in two weeks. The White House declined to comment on a Politico report that it was eying Hungary's capital Budapest as a venue for a follow-up three-way summit including Trump.

LeMonde
2 hours ago
- LeMonde
'Russia has no reason to scale back its ambitions in Ukraine and beyond'
Since Donald Trump was inaugurated in January, a series of intense diplomatic maneuvers – full of announcements, reversals and behind-the-scenes strategies – have unfolded without producing a resolution to the war in Ukraine. The successive diplomatic meetings between Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska [on August 15], followed by a meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington and then talks with European leaders [on August 18], raise the question: Has a breakthrough become possible? The answer remains unclear. Despite all parties praising the quality of the discussions, no specific details of a possible settlement, its terms or its timeline have been revealed to date. Meanwhile, the idea of an unconditional ceasefire has dropped from the agenda, and Russia has continued bombing Ukraine without losing favor with the American president. In Alaska, Putin emerged as the main political beneficiary of the meeting. Welcomed with unprecedented honors by Trump, he scored a symbolic victory: To both his electorate and the international community, he did not appear as a pariah but as an indispensable peacemaker. Beyond the staging, the Russian president largely imposed his approach. Now, Trump no longer supports an immediate ceasefire, as Kyiv and Brussels had demanded, but instead a "comprehensive agreement" with vague terms that would include recognition of Crimea as part of Russia, as well as the four regions in eastern Ukraine; the exclusion of Ukraine from membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); the recognition of Russian as a second official language in certain regions; and the return to favor of the Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate. In exchange, Putin now appears to grudgingly accept the principle of Western security guarantees for Ukraine. Whether this major shift is genuine, however, remains to be seen.


France 24
4 hours ago
- France 24
France slams Netanyahu's claim that recognising Palestinian state is fuelling anti-Semitism
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