Two-day state funeral for Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap

Hundreds of thousands of people have gathered outside General Giap's home in Hanoi and in military barracks all over the country to pay their respects to the General, who died a week ago. He was 102.

As soldiers stood to attention, officials including Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and President Truong Tan Sang paid their last respects to the late General at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi, where his coffin lay draped in the national flag.

On Friday, the Vietnamese flag outside Hanoi's Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum was lowered to half-mast to mark the start of the official mourning period. A grand procession on Sunday will escort the general's body to his home town south of Hanoi for burial.

Vo Nguyen Giap became active in politics in the late 1920s and worked as a journalist before joining Ho Chi Minh's Indochinese Communist Party.

In 1930 he was briefly jailed for leading anti-French protests but later earned a law degree from Hanoi University.

He helped Ho Chi Minh found the Viet Minh and his defeat of French forces at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 effectively ended French colonial rule in the region.

Gen Giap was North Vietnam's defence minister at the time of the Tet Offensive against US forces in 1968, often cited as a key campaign that led to the Americans' withdrawal.

It has been more than 30 years since Giap held any position of power within the Vietnamese Communist Party, but for many he is still considered a national hero.