By Ingrid "Shortwave" Frost
The leaders of France and Canada met Monday on Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, a French territory off Canada's Atlantic coast, and pledged closer cooperation on security, climate change and what they called the erosion of democratic values, according to the Guardian. It was the first visit to the territory by a French president since 2014, and the first ever by a Canadian prime minister.
The timing is pointed. The meeting came weeks after Donald Trump posted an image online showing Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, along with all of Canada and other North American countries, draped in the US flag — a gesture Ottawa has not forgotten. Canada, locked in a trade war with Washington, has been working to deepen ties with the European Union, and Monday's summit with Emmanuel Macron was part of that push, the Guardian reports.
Neither leader's exact words are quoted in the available reporting, so specifics of what was agreed — beyond a general pledge of closer relations — remain to be seen in follow-up coverage. What the visit signals plainly is a shift in posture: a G7 ally publicly courting Europe while its neighbor to the south applies economic pressure.
For a small French outpost of roughly 6,000 people best known for its fishing history, hosting two heads of government at once is itself the story. For Ottawa and Paris, the symbolism is the point — a visible answer to a map that put their territory under someone else's flag.
FILED FROM SOMEWHERE WITH BAD COFFEE —
— Compiled from reporting by The Guardian.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."