France’s prime minister says a teenage girl will be sued by the state for falsely accusing her headteacher of striking her in a heated exchange over her wearing an Islamic head-covering.

The headteacher insisted that the pupil remove her head-covering inside the school, in accordance with French law.

He resigned after death threats circulated on social media.

The Islamist threat to French schools is taken extremely seriously since the murder of two teachers.

Samuel Paty was decapitated on the street in a Paris suburb in 2020 and Dominique Bernard was killed at his school in Arras five months ago.