The rumour appears to have emerged from an account of events that took place outside the national stadium, which was published by the Wall Street Journal on 14 November.
The story quoted a security guard, referred to only by his first name, Zouheir, who described how one of the suicide bombers had a ticket to the France-Germany match but was turned away at the gates when his explosive vest was discovered.
However, in an apparent misinterpretation of the account, news publications and people on social media have been hailing Zouheir as a lone hero responsible for repelling the attack who has been ignored because of his religion.
His name has been mentioned more than 8,000 times on Twitter, with the most popular tweets in reference to the Paris story.
One tweet was retweeted over 45,000 times, while a Facebook post was shared by more than 9,500 people.
While his name is of Middle Eastern origin, the original WSJ report does not mention Zouheir’s religion.
The article does not state that Zouheir was the one who turned away the bomber, merely that he had been "briefed on the sequence [of events] by the security frisking team at the gate".
The BBC pointed out that Zouheir`s story went viral despite another tale emerging of a Muslim man`s heroic action during the Paris attacks. Safer, a bartender at the Casa Nostra restaurant, pulled two injured women into the restaurant`s basement as gunfire broke out on the street outside.
