For the French political elite, this is a moment of scarcely concealed glee. The Trump administration’s deep hostility toward Europe—including the imposition of steep new tariffs, verbal attacks on European values, open support for far-right parties, and threats to invade Greenland—vindicates the vision of a strategically autonomous continent held by generations of French leaders. It was French President Charles de Gaulle, after all, who repeatedly expressed his belief in the 1960s that it was France’s mission to liberate Western Europe from its role as a de-facto U.S. protectorate after World War II.