A blockbuster Tutankhamun show set a new all-time French record Sunday, with 1.42 million visitors flocking to see the exhibition in Paris, the organizers said.

The turnout beat the previous record set by another Tutankhamun show billed as the "exhibition of the century" in 1967, when 1.24 million queued to see "Tutankhamun and His Times" at the Petit Palais. "Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh" - which has been described as a "once in a generation" show - will open in London in November.

The last time a show of comparable size about the boy king opened there in 1972 it sparked "Tutmania," with 1.6 million people thronging the British Museum. 

More than 150 treasures from the monarch's tomb - including 60 which have never left Egypt before - have been assembled for the show.

The Egyptian Ministry for Antiquities said this was the largest number of Tutankhamun artifacts ever to have left Cairo.