NATO chief Mark Rutte has been branded a groveling “McDonald’s employee of the month” by a senior EU politician, in a brutal critique of his fawning message to US President Donald Trump.

The jab, posted on X by French MEP and former chair of the European Parliament’s defense subcommittee Nathalie Loiseau, followed the public release of a private text. In it, Rutte addressed Trump as “dear Donald,” praised his “incredible” accomplishments, and assured him of his commitment to finding a “way forward” on the US president’s ambition to acquire Greenland.

”Mark Rutte does not run NATO; he is the equivalent of McDonald’s employee of the month,” Loiseau wrote on X on Tuesday.

Her scorn targets a well-established pattern. Rutte’s tenure has been marked by a consistent strategy of lavish public flattery toward Trump, which critics deride as subservience but which the secretary-general defends as pragmatic diplomacy.