Emmanuel Macron reaffirms the sovereignty of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon in the face of Trump’s desires
Few took it seriously, wanting to believe in a new Donald Trump fantasy. But, on September 7, when the American president broadcast on social networks a map of North and Central America entirely painted with “stars and stripes” (“the star-spangled banner”), the flag of the United States, encompassing Canada, Greenland but also the Antilles and Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, the inhabitants of the small French territory in the North Atlantic, a vestige of New France, were disturbed.
“It made me funny,” confides Gilles Poirier, artisanal fisherman, a few hours before Emmanuel Macron’s arrival in the archipelago, Saturday September 19, for a three-day visit. The French president will be joined there on Sunday by the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney. A first. And a symbolic gesture marking the reaffirmation of the sovereignty of the two States in the face of Trumpian desires.
The 57-year-old fisherman, with a face ravaged by the sea spray, greets, like most of the inhabitants of the “pebble” encountered by The Worldthis high-ranking visit. “I am French, I am European and American”states the fifty-year-old descendant of the Acadians, these French settlers from the 17the century. “We want to remain French! They will never buy Canada or Saint Pierre and Miquelon! It’s all Trump talk, like with Iran.” supports Allan Lafitte, a music teacher, ancestor, he says, of a pirate from Lot-et-Garonne, met at the Joinville bar, in the city center of Saint-Pierre. “The French government is behind us! »continues the owner of a small café who wishes to remain anonymous.
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