SWITZERLAND 23 July 2015, (AFP) - Denmark's Lasse Jensen is a shot back with 12 players on five under par 70 including England's Tyrell Hatton who double-bogeyed the last hole.
Havret had a blistering round that included two eagles and his hole-in-one at the par-3 13th which won him a brand new car.
"It’s my second hole in one on the Tour, and there’s a funny story about my first," said the three-time European Tour winner Havret whose achievement brought back fond memories of Spanish legend Seve Ballesteros.
"It was at the Seve Trophy in 2007, and Seve himself was on the tee. When the ball went in, he jumped into my arms and shouted 'You’ve won a car!'
"It was such a great moment, but then later that night he told me he’d made a mistake, and the car was only the prize on the final day. So that was a bit disappointing, but this beautiful prize definitely makes up for it."
Hatton is two shots off the lead at five under in a group including English trio Danny Willett, Seve Benson and Richard Bland.
Also in this group are Swedes Pelle Edberg and Rikard Karlberg, South Korea's Y.E. Yang and Thailand's Jazz Janewattananond on a day hit by a 90-minute delay due to fog.
Leading first round scores from the EPGA European Masters on Thursday (par-70), GBR & IRL unless stated:
63 - Gregory Havret (FRA)
64 - Lasse Jensen (DEN)
65 - Danny Willet, Seve Benson, Jazz Janewattananond (THA), Richard Bland, Pelle Edberg (SWE), Y.E. Yang (KOR), Richard Karlberg (SWE), Tyrrell Hatton, Marcus Kinhult (SWE), Richard Green (AUS), Michael Hoey, Seukhyun Baek (KOR)
66 - Bradley Dredge, David Lipsky (USA), Magnus Carlsson (SWE), Johan Carlsson (SWE), Angelo Que (PHI), Alessandro Tadini (ITA)
67 - Anders Hansen (DEN), John Parry, Nathan Holman (AUS), Patrick Reed (USA), Jamie Donaldson, Marcus Fraser (AUS), Edoardo Molinari (ITA), Rashid Kahn (IND), Marco Iten (SUI-a)), Jeff Lucquin (FRA), Alejandro Canizares (ESP), Adrian Otaegui (ESP), Peter Lawrie, Anirban Lahiri (IND), Ross Fisher, Bernd Wiesberger (AUT), Craig Lee, Julien Quesne (FRA)