DHAKA (AFP) - At least 50,000 people took part Monday (Nov 2) in the biggest demonstration yet in Bangladesh over French President Emmanuel Macron's defence of the right to publish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, police said.

A rally which started at Bangladesh's biggest mosque was stopped from getting close to the French embassy where security has been stepped up.

Police estimated some 50,000 people took part in the protest, which demanded a boycott of French products, while organisers said there were more than 100,000.

Protesters chanted "No defamation of the Prophet Muhammad" and burned an effigy of the French leader.

Mr Macron sparked protests across the Muslim world after the murder last month of teacher Samuel Paty - who had shown his class a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad - by saying France would never renounce its laws permitting blasphemous caricatures.

The third major anti-France demonstration in Bangladesh in the past week was called by Hefazat-i-Islami, one of the biggest radical Muslim political groups in the country of 160 million people.

Many people came from towns outside Dhaka to take part in the rally.

Mr Junaid Babunagaori, the firebrand deputy chief of Hezafat, called on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to move the Bangladesh Parliament to condemn Mr Macron.

"I call on traders to throw away French products. I ask the UN to take stern action against France," he told the rally.

Meanwhile, around 3,000 people also demonstrated Monday outside the French embassy in Jakarta in Indonesia - the world's biggest Muslim majority nation - according to police.

Protesters burned pictures of Mr Macron and waved placards emblazoned with a shoeprint on his face and others depicting the French leader with devil horns.