On Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, an annual gathering of the world’s elites in the Alps, and declared that now is “not the time for new imperialism or new colonialism.”
This was, of course, a reference to the current ambitions of Macron’s counterpart in the United States, Donald Trump. In addition to recently kidnapping Venezuela’s president and repeatedly threatening to seize the Panama Canal, Donald Trump has made a fuss about taking over the Danish autonomous territory of Greenland.
On Wednesday, President Trump himself took to the Davos podium and gave a typically rambling speech, in which he alternated between talking about windmills, sneeringly praising Macron’s “beautiful” reflective sunglasses, and declaring that he would not “use force” to take over Greenland (which he also mistakenly called Iceland).
In fact, President Trump’s designs on the island have so much on his European panties that the European Parliament issued an unequivocal condemnation: “The statements made by the Trump administration regarding Greenland are a blatant challenge to international law, the principles of the United Nations Charter, and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the NATO allies.”
Following Macron’s intervention at Davos, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported that European leaders were “united” against the “new colonialism” that the French leader denounced.
Now, it goes without saying that we should never encourage Mr. Trump’s predatory international activities, which are clearly demented. However, it is fair to point out that Europe has little to speak of when it comes to colonialism and imperialism.
Let’s start with France. France continues to rule over a dozen territories around the world, many of which are marketed as exotic vacation destinations, including the Guadeloupe Islands in the Caribbean and the Mayotte Islands in the Indian Ocean.
Although these territories have officially moved beyond their status as subordinate colonies to become bona fide departments of the French Republic, and thus become part of the European Union, France seems unable to shake off the old imperial mindset and associated sense of superiority.
In December 2024, when residents of cyclone-ravaged Mayotte, France’s poorest overseas region, criticized the government’s incompetent response to the disaster, President Macron charmingly declared: “If it weren’t for France, you would be 10,000 times worse off.”
What about “new colonialism”?
When it comes to tried-and-true “old” colonialism, France has a particularly horrendous track record on that front as well. Recall the events in Algeria, where approximately 1.5 million Algerians were murdered during the war of independence from French rule from 1954 to 1962.
Macron has previously acknowledged that France’s colonization of the North African country was a “crime against humanity” marked by rampant torture and other atrocities, but has consistently rejected a formal apology from France.
But it’s not just France. Many other European powers that suddenly opposed colonialism also have surprisingly barbaric legacies around the world.
Indeed, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East and beyond, it is difficult to find a single piece of land that has not been affected by centuries of European dispossession, enslavement, genocide, and similar atrocities.
The Spanish massacred indigenous populations across the Americas, Britain wreaked imperial havoc wherever it could, and King Leopold II of Belgium established the Congo Free State as his private estate in 1885, presiding over the deaths of some 10 million Congolese people.
In 2022, King Philippe of Belgium expressed “deep regret” for the abuses that occurred during the colonial era, but held off on issuing a formal apology. As one non-apologetic article pointed out, life in the Congo Free State was “notorious for villages that failed to meet rubber collection quotas and were forced to provide severed hands in return.”
Meanwhile, for Ethiopia, British historian Ian Campbell estimates that 19 to 20 percent of the Ethiopian population in Addis Ababa was wiped out in just three days during Italy’s military occupation of East Africa in 1937.
The list of European atrocities goes on.
Of course, this is not meant to suggest that President Trump should be free to commit crimes and loot as he pleases. This is simply a friendly reminder that we cannot selectively oppose colonialism. (Incidentally, Greenland was until recently a full colony of Denmark.)
Speaking of colonial atrocities, in the process of Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip for more than two years, Europe failed to adequately arm itself against the genocide, preferring to follow the path of superficial criticism and de facto complicity.
As the killings continue under the guise of a US-brokered ceasefire, the Gaza Strip is now to be managed by a so-called “peace committee” according to President Trump’s initiative, but who else will chair it? – Trump himself.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister and genocide extraordinaire, will also be on the board, heralding the arrival of a “new colonialism” of arguably the most sinister kind.
But unfortunately for the world, bloody hypocrisy is nothing new.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
