The Daily Mail has removed a report from its website that described the French capital as “Powder Keg Paris” following accusations that its reporting contained inaccuracies and misrepresentations about the impact of migration on one suburb.

The piece described a “devastating report” that suggested 300,000 “illegal migrants” were living in the suburb of Saint-Denis, north of Paris, where drug dealing, crime and poverty were rising due to the “quite simple” explanation of “immigration on a mammoth scale”.

The article, by the journalist Andrew Malone, first appeared as a double-page story in the Daily Mail’s Saturday edition on 28 July. But it was removed online following criticism from the French activist Marwan Muhammad, a former director of the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, in a lengthy Twitter thread that raised more than a dozen issues with the piece.

Marwan Muhammad (@_MarwanMuhammad) Hello @MailOnline. I've read your "devastating" article on "illegal migrants in Saint Denis". We too in France have tabloïds who couldn't care less about the truth, but I really have to say: you're in a league of your own. Everything in your paper is wrong. A fact checking: 👇🏽 pic.twitter.com/zWiqlffxsP

In addition to criticising the overall depiction of Saint-Denis and disputing suggestions that it was a “parallel state” where no one would shake hands with “an infidel” reporter, Muhammad pointed out that it would be difficult for 300,000 illegal migrants to live there, given the official population is 110,000.

However, a Daily Mail source insisted the article had only been taken off the site temporarily and the “the intention is to restore it” after considering the complaints and correcting where necessary. The source admitted it may have confused the population of Saint-Denis with that of the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, where 1.6 million people live.

“The article is a very strong article written by somebody who has reported from the Middle East, a student of Arabic,” said the source, who said the newspaper stood by the overall thrust of the reporting. “He obviously spent a period of time there and it’s about the journalist’s experience on site.”

The Daily Mail article was followed up by other news sources, including the Sun, and was covered in the US on Fox News, where a host commented on the immigration statistics by saying: “They don’t really have their arms around that one, do they?”

The Daily Mail’s reporting was prompted by a publication by France’s National Assembly, which had raised concerns about the impact of migration on Seine-Saint-Denis. It concluded that “the only thing we are sure about is that the state doesn’t know how many illegal immigrants there are” in the area, while noting that unofficial estimates ranged from 150,000 to 400,000.

Muhammad said he saw the article after being asked to fact-check it by the campaigner Miqdaad Versi, assistant general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, who has won dozens of corrections from UK media outlets over their coverage of Islam and Muslims.

“I used to live in Saint-Denis. It’s a really vibrant city,” said Muhammad. “Time and again in the tabloid press – not only in France but also abroad – there is the idea that French suburbs are a no-go zone.

“The actual truth is we have no reliable estimate on the number of illegal migrants in Paris. There is an intertwined of social, political and migratory issues that combine in some of the suburbs. This is complex and requires time and analysis. Mainstream media don’t have the space for nuances.”

Madjid Messaoudene, a local councillor for the Left Front party, said the article had failed to show the other side of the Saint-Denis. “We have a lot of problems to deal with, but we have a lot to talk about. They just wanted to show us as non-educated animals, like a jungle. It was really unfair from this journalist, if I can call him a journalist.

“For 20 to 30 years we have always been a city of immigration. The difference is we are not helped any more by the public authorities and [this] has left the city alone to deal with the difficulties. People are trying to survive, living in the streets, selling drugs, selling prostitution sometimes. We should target the problem and not target the population because of its origin.

“We have a problem with illegal persons, it’s a situation we have to deal with,” he said. “If the journalist of the Daily Mail had called me, I would have told him that we are calling for solidarity, we are not calling to treat them like animals and expel them from the city.”

