LONDON — Lance Armstrong was stripped of his, and Harvey Weinstein will lose his, but Vladimir V. Putin still has one. On Thursday, Bashar al-Assad sent his back, though he was on his way to having it taken away from him.

The Legion of Honor, France’s highest award, has been pinned on many of the world’s most esteemed cultural, political, military, scientific, philanthropic and athletic figures. But alongside them have been some less-revered characters, like Mr. Assad, the Syrian president, who has been blamed for a series of atrocities, including the use of chemical weapons, in his country’s seven-year-old civil war.

The award is usually given for “outstanding merit” in some field, but France has been known to honor foreign leaders simply because it suits the government’s purposes at the time.

Recipients have included Manuel Noriega, the Panamanian strongman who was later imprisoned for drug and financial crimes; Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban dictator; and Mr. Putin, the Russian president.