Neighbours on France’s North American shore

On a rocky speck of France just 20 kilometres off Newfoundland, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney staged one of the more pointed diplomatic photographs of 2026. The meeting on Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon was not about the islands’ 6,000 residents. It was about drawing a line on the map.

Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon is the last fragment of New France in North America, a French overseas collectivity that has changed hands between Paris and London for centuries and still flies the tricolour beside Canadian waters. It sits far closer to St. John’s than to Paris – and, by North Atlantic standards, within the same strategic neighbourhood as the United States. That geography is the point. By standing together there, France and Canada were saying they remain neighbours in their own right, not appendages of a larger continental power.

Entre voisins à Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon. pic.twitter.com/Yf514q3cfR
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) September 20, 2026

The visit carried several firsts. It was the first official trip by a sitting Canadian prime minister to the archipelago and Macron’s first as president. They marked the 1941 rallying of the islands to Free France, a reminder that small territories have chosen sides before. The practical agenda – energy, critical minerals, space infrastructure, Arctic cooperation – mattered, but the location mattered more. In a moment of strained relations with Washington, the two leaders used French soil on America’s doorstep to declare themselves “two great independent nations who want to stay that way.”

Weeks earlier, Donald Trump had given that geography an unexpected spotlight. On Truth Social he posted a map of North America draped in the American flag and labelled “United States of America,” covering not only the United States itself but Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. The graphic also swallowed France’s last North American outpost, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, along with French Caribbean territories. Trump offered no explanation, yet the image fit a pattern: he has repeatedly spoken of Greenland as a strategic prize and of Canada as a potential 51st state. The map was not a formal claim, but it was enough to turn a remote French archipelago into a stage on which Paris and Ottawa could answer with a simple demonstration of presence.

TRUMP: Posts map depicting North America and Greenland as United States of America pic.twitter.com/3KqaDjeZyR
— Trump Truths (@trumptruthsbot) September 7, 2026

The symbolism was therefore triple: a claim of European presence in North America, a display of Franco-Canadian solidarity, and a quiet insistence that sovereignty is not a courtesy extended by larger neighbours. The handshake on the tarmac was meant to be seen from both sides of the Atlantic.

Caption: Screenshot from video posted by Canadian PM Mark Carney on X of his visit to Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon [EUalive]