The City of Light, Paris, was recently embarrassed as its landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower almost disappeared amid lasting heavy smog. The authorities put emergency traffic restrictions in place that only allowed odd-numbered vehicles on the roads on Monday. This came with a series of other measures such as temporary free public transportation so as to deal with the air pollutants jumping above the recommended maximum, briefly the highest in the world.

Analysts say that the smog was caused by unhelpful meteorological conditions and diesel vehicles, yet it may not be strange to French people as similar restrictions were carried out in Paris almost exactly a year ago to tackle extremely grave air pollution.

In fact, last week many places in Europe also suffered unpleasant air quality, according to air quality monitoring, though the pollution level in Paris dropped to a moderate level on Monday.

Many foreign commentators were not so used to the policy of driving on alternate days, although it is quite familiar to Chinese people. Some Chinese netizens joked that France should say that the smog has come from Beijing, as China's neighbors have done.

However, for a fraction of the Chinese population that believe developed countries perform better than China in everything, Paris' smoggy days may remind them that air pollution is not unique to any particular country but a challenge that is hard to avoid when a country goes forward.

While Europe has indeed marched faster and achieved better than China did when it comes to environmental protection, it also has to face pollution problems arising from time to time.

After all, the environmental capacity has limits when people tend to have endless demands to improve their living standards.

Earlier this month, a Greenpeace investigation found that the new limits set by the European Union on toxic emissions from coal plants are weaker than those in China, as some polluters are also the rule-makers.

Scenarios like smoggy days in Paris take place far less frequently than in China and it's unfair to draw a conclusion with the occurrence at a certain moment, despite the EU warning of the possibility of hundreds of thousands of premature deaths in the next 20 years due to air pollution.

The smog-afflicted Chinese people have shown unprecedented attention to air pollution and sided with the authorities' extensive efforts to improve air quality.

It's fair to say that some progress has already been witnessed and an array of drastic measures is being implemented.

This also leads to vast prospects for cooperation between China and EU countries that have gathered exceptional experiences in combating air pollution, since both sides are troubled by the loathsome smog and keenly wish to bid it farewell.