A 47-year-old history teacher in Paris who had shown pupils a Charlie Hebdo caricature of the Muslim prophet was murdered in a brutal terror attack

Police guard the scene of the crime following the gruesome murder 

A killer who decapitated a teacher in France posted an horrific photo of the victim before he was shot dead by police, according to reports.

The suspect stabbed the middle school history teacher to death in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a residential suburb north-west of Paris on Friday afternoon in a brutal terror attack.

The 47-year-old teacher was killed near the school, where earlier this month he had shown his pupils cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, French officials said on Friday.

Showing or creating cartoons of Prophet Muhammad is considered blasphemous by Muslims and has previously been the cause of terrorist attacks in France, when extremists targeted the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Police shot the suspect, believed to be an 18-year-old born in Moscow, dead just a few miles from the scene of the stabbing.