Beheaded teacher Paty will get France's highest honour

Samuel Paty, the 47-year old history teacher beheaded last week, will posthumously get France's highest award, the "Legion d'Honneur".

The announcement was made by education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer on BFM TV on Tuesday.

Paty was murdered on Friday in broad daylight outside his school in a middle-class Paris suburb by an 18-year-old of Chechen origin. Police shot the attacker dead.

The murder shocked France, and carried echoes of the attack five years ago on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Public figures called the killing an attack on the Republic and on French values.

A national ceremony in honour of Paty will be held at Paris' Sorbonne university on Wednesday.