Deeply unpopular in France, President Emmanuel Macron relishes the international stage, where he projects himself as the leader best placed to handle Donald Trump. Seven years after our last encounter, I joined him as he prepared for battle at the G7 summit in Canada.
Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, is a small jumble of orange prefab buildings and low grey apartment blocks on a stony outcrop. There are no trees, but a hill topped by the statue of Hans Egede, the Danish-Norwegian missionary who evangelised the world's biggest island in the 18th century. It was at his feet that I awaited the helicopters bringing back the Greenlandic prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, and Macron – referred to throughout this trip as 'PR', short for président de la république – from their excursion on the ice.
I was hoping to get on one of those helicopters, but it was a PR+3 event, meaning PR plus three other people, which was out of my reach. As an embedded writer travelling with the French delegation, I started having a chance at about PR+6 or 7. While waiting for the head of state to return, the mid-level members of the French delegation found a hangar equipped with wifi to work in. They work all the time and, as a diplomatic adviser told me, don't get jet lag because they hardly ever sleep. As for parasites like me and the photographers, we kicked around Nuuk, perspiring in our down jackets and moon boots because we'd been told it would be below freezing while it was actually a balmy 10C out.
Only a few months ago, Macron would never have got it into his head to visit Greenland. In fact, no one really cared much about Greenland until Donald Trump let it be known that, like Canada, it was destined to become American. There's a 'good possibility', he said, that Greenland could be annexed 'without military force'. In this context, it was what political communicators call a 'strong gesture' on Macron's part to stop in Nuuk for a few hours on his way to the G7 and address the 200-300 people who'd turned out to listen to him, his voice alternately stirring and cajoling, his words peppered with skilfully placed pauses the Greenlanders have not yet had time to grow tired of.
Hating Macron is a national sport in France – one that I personally do not participate in. Here, on the other hand, people were crazy about him. Ten days earlier they didn't necessarily know who he was, but on the day of his visit, Nuuk looked every bit like a hotbed of fervent Macronists. His presence brought solace, and the crowd's enthusiasm reached its peak when, after a resounding 'Qujanaq!' ('thank you' in Greenlandic), he declared first that Greenland is neither up for sale, nor up for grabs (prolonged cheers, as if he'd said 'Ich bin ein Grönländer'), then that France will open a consulate in Nuuk (somewhat less enthusiastic cheers), and finally that his helicopter trip had allowed him to observe up close the effects of global heating.
In the succession of brief speeches, the three leaders outdid one another in their use of the word 'climate' – five times for Macron – but I didn't yet have a feel for just how provocative such seemingly banal statements could be. When the speeches were done, a journalist asked PR how far his solidarity would extend if Trump invaded Greenland, and he answered with a hint of impatience that he didn't want to waste his time speculating on questions that were not currently on the table.
