437Emmanuel Macron has reaffirmed French sovereignty over Saint-Pierre and Miquelon after Donald Trump published a map showing the North Atlantic archipelago beneath the US flag, as France and Canada move to deepen cooperation on energy, defence and strategic industries.
French President Emmanuel Macron has declared that Saint-Pierre and Miquelon is “French” and remains firmly attached to France after US President Donald Trump published a map depicting the territory under the American flag.
Speaking after arriving in the archipelago, Macron said there was “no discussion” over its status.
“We are not going to repeat it every morning simply because people have strange ideas or say strange things,” the French president said, according to remarks made during his visit to Saint-Pierre.
Macron was responding to an image published by Trump on 7 September showing much of North America, Central America and the Caribbean covered by the American flag and labelled “United States of America”.
The map included Canada, Mexico, Greenland and Iceland, as well as the French Caribbean territories and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. It was published without an accompanying explanation and did not amount to a formal US territorial claim.
Its publication nevertheless prompted diplomatic reactions elsewhere. Iceland summoned the US ambassador over its inclusion in the image, while the map also revived attention on Trump’s previous statements concerning Greenland and Canada.
Saint-Pierre and Miquelon lies just south of Newfoundland and is the last remaining French territory in North America.
The archipelago covers about 242 square kilometres and has a population of fewer than 6,000. It has the status of a French overseas collectivity and remains under French sovereignty, with its constitutional position governed by Article 74 of the French Constitution.
Carney joins Macron in Saint-Pierre
Macron’s visit takes on a wider diplomatic significance on Sunday with the arrival of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
According to the Canadian prime minister’s official programme, Carney is due to hold a working lunch with Macron before the two leaders take part in a wreath-laying ceremony and issue a joint statement.
Ottawa said ahead of the visit that the talks would focus on expanding cooperation in areas including energy, aerospace, critical minerals, quantum technologies, satellites and supercomputing.
The choice of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon places the meeting only a short distance from Canadian territory and comes as Ottawa accelerates efforts to diversify its political and commercial relationships.
Carney has recently intensified Canada’s engagement with Europe. As EU Today reported earlier this month, the Canadian prime minister has ruled out EU membership but called for negotiations on a new and unusually broad partnership covering trade, defence, energy, critical minerals and technology.
Those discussions moved further during the European Commission’s State of the Union programme in Strasbourg.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has proposed making Canada the first country to enter a new form of “associate membership” relationship with the EU.
She said Brussels wanted to move beyond the existing Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement towards an “Alliance for the Future”, incorporating cooperation on manufacturing, defence industries, Arctic policy, energy, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, cyber security and critical raw materials.
Trump threatens tariffs over Canada-EU ties
Washington has responded sharply to the prospect of deeper institutional links between Canada and the EU.
Trump warned last week that the United States could impose “very serious tariffs” or other restrictions on European trade if Washington considered the proposed relationship hostile.
EU Today reported on Thursday that Trump said the American response would depend on the form the proposed Canada-EU arrangement eventually takes.
The European Commission has said the initiative is not directed against the United States, while Carney has maintained that Canada will decide independently which international partnerships it pursues.
The episode has added another layer to already unsettled transatlantic trade relations. EU governments have spent much of 2026 managing repeated tariff disputes with Washington, including negotiations over industrial goods and American threats of new trade measures.
The proposed Canadian relationship is therefore becoming part of a wider debate over how far Europe and Canada can deepen economic and security cooperation without generating further friction with Washington.
Energy security moves up the agenda
Energy is also expected to feature prominently in Macron’s talks with Carney.
Europe is approaching winter with unusually low gas storage levels and tighter LNG supply conditions. As EU Today reported this week, EU gas stocks are at their lowest level recorded for this stage of the year, while disruption affecting Middle Eastern exports has increased competition for liquefied natural gas cargoes.
Canada, one of the world’s largest oil and natural gas producers, is consequently attracting additional European interest as governments examine alternative sources of supply.
Expanding Canadian LNG deliveries to Europe would, however, depend not only on production but also on available export terminals, pipeline connections and shipping routes to the Atlantic.
For Macron and Carney, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon therefore provides a setting for discussions extending well beyond the islands themselves.
The meeting brings together French sovereignty in the North Atlantic, Canada’s developing relationship with the European Union, European energy security and a broader reordering of political and commercial relationships across the Atlantic.
What began with an unexplained map published by the US president has consequently become part of a much larger argument over sovereignty, trade and the emerging relationship between Canada and Europe.
Photo: Quintin Soloviev / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
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