PARIS — Even after Fox News apologized for broadcasting false claims that Paris was blighted by dangerous Muslim-ruled “no-go zones,” the mayor of Paris could barely conceal her indignation.
“The spreading of such lies seriously damaged the honor and image of Parisians and Paris,” Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a Socialist, said in an interview. She said that Paris, still deeply shaken by the recent terrorist attacks, would not tolerate words that “sully” liberty.
City Hall aides said Thursday that Ms. Hidalgo planned to file a defamation complaint against Fox News at a Paris court this week, once she received approval from the Paris Council. Some interpreted the legal action as an empty gesture calculated to raise her profile since, at least in the United States, such a complaint is unlikely to go far, given First Amendment protections.
But her response, observers say, reflects the new swagger of a sometimes hesitant and soft-spoken but ambitious politician who, after being elected mayor in March, has been pushed into the spotlight by one of the country’s bloodiest terrorist attacks in recent memory.
“She has not changed her personality,” said Marie-Ève Malouines, a political columnist for the France Info radio station, who wrote a book about the mayoral race between Ms. Hidalgo and her opponent, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, last year. “But people might look at her differently now.”
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Ms. Hidalgo said the experience was her political baptism, and one she did not necessarily enjoy or excel at.
“I understood that there were initiation rites and that I needed to get over them because politics aren’t an easy thing, and I had to keep my feelings to myself,” she said. “I had to consider all this as a training to strengthen myself.”
Then, she added with a discreet smile, “I no longer have any doubts.”
A version of this article appears in print on February 8, 2015, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: Mayor of Paris Grows Into Her New Role As Comforter in Chief . Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
