A senior local official has been charged with ordering an arson attack on a Roma grocery in a northern French town in a case that has highlighted growing resentment over EU migration.

Yohan Senez, a Socialist councillor who runs the office of the mayor of Denain, an impoverished former mining town, is accused of ordering municipal employees to set fire to the shop. He allegedly toasted the “success” of the attack with a single-malt whisky.

A 25-year-old working for the municipality on a temporary youth employment scheme, named as Didier L, admitted starting a fire at the Stoica grocery on the night of March 20. No one was hurt as the building was empty.

Didier L told police that his boss, Jean-Philippe Devotte, in charge of cleaning services, had given him a can of petrol and gloves, saying the order came from someone “highly placed at the town hall” and promising him a permanent job if he carried out the attack.

Mr Devotte, 28, later confessed to police, claiming he acted under the instructions of Mr Senez, who has campaigned against racism and the far-Right.

Mr Senez, who allegedly ordered Mr Devotte to “get rid of that grocery” and told him not to inform the mayor, was charged with ”complicity in arson committed because of the race, ethnicity, nationality or religion of the victim”.