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In the language of headline writers, he is "Muslim Man," hailed as a hero for hiding hostages during last week's terrorist attacks by Muslim fanatics in France.

When the kosher supermarket where he works in eastern Paris came under siege, Lassana Bathily put his own life at risk to hide a half-dozen terrified customers in a walk-in refrigerator.

But when the 24-year-old shop assistant managed to escape through a back exit, police immediately forced him to the ground, handcuffed him and took him into custody.

That's because Bathily, an immigrant from Mali in West Africa, fit the description of Amedy Coulibaly, one of the terrorists -- young black male with a dark complexion.

Police held Bathily in handcuffs for an hour and a half, he later told French TV, before a friend identified him and he was freed -- to help police plan their assault that freed the surviving hostages.

That's when he became "Muslim Man," a hero in the headlines. Thousands signed an online petition that called on French President Francois Hollande to grant Bathily automatic citizenship for his heroism.

He was compared immediately to Ahmed Merabet, the Muslim police officer who was fatally shot while responding to a mass shooting at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, by gunmen linked to Coulibaly.

But Bathily's experience, judged by the color of his skin before police could learn the content of his character, also symbolizes the prejudices, frustrations and cultural anxieties of immigrants who want to assimilate into the mainstream but run into roadblocks.

Paris suburbs, for example, become breeding grounds of multigenerational poverty, crime, resentment that drives too many dispirited youths into the arms of Islamic militants.

And that helps to feed a backlash of support for resurgent ultra-right political parties that flirt with neo-Nazism.

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