French President Emmanuel Macron rejected the idea that China handled the coronavirus outbreak better than Western democracies, calling the idea “naive” because of the Communist country’s lack of transparency.

In an interview published Friday in the Financial Times, Macron said there was no comparison between countries where information flowed freely and citizens could criticize their governments and those where the truth was suppressed and dissenters punished.

“Given these differences, the choices made and what China is today, which I respect, let’s not be so naive as to say it’s been much better at handling this,” Macron told the FT.

“We don’t know. There are clearly things that have happened that we don’t know about.”

Friction between China and France came to light earlier this week when the Chinese ambassador was summoned by the foreign minister after his embassy posted on its website what French lawmakers called “fake news.”

With Post wires