France’s interior minister has called for greater security for Muslim places of worship after vandals defaced the walls of a mosque days before the start of Ramadan.

Axar.az reports citing foreign media that early on Sunday, a caretaker and members of the local Muslim community discovered graffiti on a mosque and Muslim cultural centre in the western city of Rennes.

The graffiti included tags insulting Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, references to restarting the Crusades and a call for Catholicism to be made the state religion.

The prosecutor’s office in Rennes has launched an investigation.

Addressing reporters during a visit to the site, Minister of Interior Gerald Darmanin denounced the vandalism and expressed “solidarity” with France’s 5.7 million Muslims.