Tens of thousands of protesters marched through the Bangladesh capital on Tuesday in the biggest anti-France rally since President Emmanuel Macron defended cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad.

Iran PressAsia: Muslims across the world have reacted furiously to Macron's robust defense of the right to mock religion following the murder of a French schoolteacher who had shown his pupils cartoons of the prophet. In Dhaka, protesters set alight an effigy of Macron during Tuesday's march, in which police said 40,000 people took part.

Hundreds of armed officers used a barbed-wire barricade to stop the demonstrators, who dispersed without violence before they could get close to the French embassy.

The rally was called by Islami Andolon Bangladesh (IAB), one of the country's largest Islamist parties, and started at the biggest mosque in the nation. Bangladesh is around 90-percent Muslim.

"Boycott French products", demonstrators chanted.

Ataur Rahman, a senior Islami Andolon member, told the rally at the Baitul Mukarram national mosque: "Macron is one of the few leaders who worship Satan."

Rahman called on the Bangladesh government to kick out the French ambassador, while another protest leader, Hasan Jamal, said activists would tear down every brick of that building if the envoy was not ordered out.

"France is the enemy of Muslims," said Nesar Uddin, a young leader of the group. "Those who represent them are also our enemies."

In Syria people burned pictures of France's leader, tricolor flags were torched in the Libyan capital Tripoli, while French goods have been pulled from supermarket shelves in Qatar, Kuwait, and other Gulf states.

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