The mayor of Paris plans to sue Fox News for its reporting on the city in the wake of the attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

“When we’re insulted, and when we’ve had an image, then I think we’ll have to sue, I think we’ll have to go to court, in order to have these words removed,” Mayor Anne Hidalgo told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday. She added that “the image of Paris” had been harmed, and the “honor of Paris” had been harmed.

She was responding to remarks on Fox News that there were “no-go zones” in Paris where non-Muslims and even police were afraid to go. Fox and Friends even broadcast a map outlining seven such zones.

Paris is not the only European city to be maligned in this way. Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana and a possible contender for the 2016 presidential election, told a group of British MPs that similar “no-go zones” – where Sharia law trumps British law – have appeared across the UK.

Previously, Steve Emerson, a “terrorism expert” talking-head also on Fox News, went one step further, labelling Birmingham – a city of more than a million people – as being a place where “non-Muslims simply don’t go in”.

A spokesperson for Birmingham city council told the Guardian that they were not considering joining Paris in their lawsuit.

Fox News have been roundly mocked for their comments. A French satirical TV show called Le Petit Journal ran a segment ribbing the network, and in Birmingham, users took to Twitter with the joke hashtag “#FoxNewsFacts”.

UK prime minister David Cameron told ITV news that he “choked on his porridge” when he first heard the comments, before saying that Emerson was “clearly an idiot”.

In a statement on 11 January, Emerson apologised unreservedly for his comments, saying he “made an inexcusable error”, and several Fox News shows issued on-air apologies.

In a statement on Wednesday, Michael Clemente, the executive vice-president for news at Fox News, said: “We empathise with the citizens of France as they go through a healing process and return to everyday life.

“However, we find the mayor’s comments regarding a lawsuit misplaced.”

This article was updated on Wednesday 21 January 2015, to include a statement from Fox News.