GETTY The facade of a future migrant reception centre was found riddled with bullet holes

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A police investigation has been launched after the façade of a future migrant reception centre was found riddled with bullet holes on Wednesday morning. Local authorities believe that the incident, which is thought to have taken place around 8.30pm on Tuesday night, is a violent act of protest against the impending arrival of 70 Calais ‘Jungle’ camp migrants in Saint-Brévin, a coastal town near Nantes, in western France.

We will be opening new reception centres in order to create an additional 9,000 shelter places because we cannot let these people live out on the street Emmanuelle Cosse

According to French newspaper Ouest France, the shots fired at the reception centre damaged the bay windows of two separate buildings belonging to the CCAS, a public sector company and a branch of the French energy giant EDF-GRDF, whose former holiday centre is being turned into a temporary shelter for Calais’s stranded immigrant population.

Evicted Calais migrants sleep rough in Paris Wed, August 3, 2016 Hundreds of migrants evicted from the Calais Jungle camp sleep rough in Paris. Play slideshow Caters News Agency 1 of 191 Calais camp is dismantled as resident set fires and throw stones at Police

GETTY Yannick Haury said the 'gratuitous act was unacceptable and irresponsible'

He said: “This gratuitous act is unacceptable and irresponsible." This morning, Yannick Haury, the right-wing Saint-Brévin mayor, condemned the attack on the reception centre.

GETTY Bernard Cazeneuve is taking care of the migrant relocation scheme along with Mrs Cosse

The gun attack also sparked outrage among members of François Hollande’s Socialist government, including housing minister Emmanuelle Cosse, who is heading the migrant relocation scheme alongside interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve. Mrs Cosse, who has repeatedly asked citizens to do more to help refugees, including welcoming them into their own homes, denounced Tuesday’s “extremely racist attack”.

Thursday morning, the housing minister told French radio station Europe 1 that the country’s “humanists and progressives” had to start openly condemning anti-immigrant attacks, which have spread like wildfire across France ever since the Calais ‘Jungle’ relocation plan was announced last month.

GETTY Emmanuelle Cosse denounced Tuesday’s 'extremely racist attack'

Mrs Cosse also said that extreme-right militants were probably behind the bloodless but nevertheless brutal attack, and condemned their “sickening” political tactics. She said: “I want the French to know that it really isn’t that hard for us to welcome such small groups of people nationwide, we can do it.”