French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot says the European Union (EU) will stand firm in its alliance in the face of repeated comments from President-elect Trump about the U.S. acquiring Greenland from Denmark. "If the European Commission does not know how to protect us against this interference or these threats of interference, then it must give back to the Member States, to France, the ability to protect itself," Barot told Radio France in an interview released Wednesday, according to translations. However, he said he doesn't believe Trump’s threats would materialize into a physical attack on sovereign borders. “If you’re asking me whether I think the United States will invade Greenland, the answer is no,” he stated. “But have we entered into an era that sees survival of the fittest? The answer is yes.” The Arctic territory is owned by Denmark but governs self-autonomously.  Trump has said acquiring Greenland is an “absolute necessity,” hammering down on those claims in a Tuesday press conference and floating the use of military force to seize the land. “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Trump said in a late December Truth Social post. Foreign leaders, including Greenland’s prime minister, have pushed back. “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom,” Múte Egede said in a statement, according to reports from BBC and The Guardian. Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen echoed that stance, as did other EU leaders. Trump has also repeatedly talked about the U.S. annexing Canada or acquiring the Panama Canal, signaling growing interest in territorial expansion in his second term.