Asked if China's authoritarian response to bring the outbreak under control had exposed the weakness of Western democracies, Mr Macron said that there was no comparison between open societies and those where truth was suppressed.

“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,” he told the Financial Times. “We don’t know. There are clearly things that have happened that we don’t know about.”

His comments came as China revised its death toll from the city of Wuhan, where the outbreak started, up by 50% on Friday.