I am pretty certain the parent's analogy was that (the non-Paris) French cities typically can fund bus service routes just as widely convenient as (the non-Amsterdam) Dutch cities typically can fund train services.

It was not at all a putdown of France, which, after all, does fund many more long distance TGV routes out of geographic necessity; just a favorable comparison of how conveniently widespread the medium-speed train routes are in the average Dutch metropolitan region.