Politics

French police have launched a huge operation to hunt down and capture members of the "suspected ETA commando" responsible yesterday for killing one of their own officers on the outskirts of Paris. It is still unclear how many members of the armed group are implicated in the incident, though French authorities do not rule out the possibility that as many as ten were involved.

The deceased officer, a police chief of 52 years, died following a gun attack carried out by various suspected members of ETA, antiterrorist campaign sources inform.

The same sources have indicated that one of the perpetrators has been arrested, though the rest (among them one blond woman) managed to escape without being identified.

The police came under fire from other vehicles, which were apparently committing several car thefts from a garage. "We think it was a commando unit of at least six people, maybe 10, including a woman, because six cars were stolen," a French judicial source said.

One man was arrested at the scene and he gave a Spanish identity corresponding to that of a Basque individual close to ETA, according to the same source.

If ETA was responsible for the shooting, it would be the time the group has killed a French law enforcement official. ETA wants independence for traditional Basque lands not only in northern Spain but also in southwestern France.

Authorities in Spain, where the Basque separatist rebels have killed more than 850 people, were quick to blame the group."This time France has paid a high price for its collaboration in the fight against ETA, which is so important for our freedom and our security," panish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told a news conference.

"I feel just as strongly about the murder of this policeman as I would have done if he had been a member of our own security forces," he said.

ETA members have often used the open border with France to escape detection in Spain and while they do commit crimes, such as theft of vehicles and weapons, they avoid direct confrontation with French police.

However, in recent weeks increased security measures by the French have led to hundreds of arrests and seriously weakened
the group.

At the end of February, the man believed to be ETA''s military leader, Ibon Gogeaskoetxea, was arrested in Normandy along with two suspected accomplices.

UNLIKELY CHANGE IN TACTICS

Tuesday''s killing was unlikely to herald a more aggressive attitude towards the French authorities, according to Juan Aviles, a history professor at Spain''s UNED open university.

Instead, they may be struggling to operate effectively."You get the impression that they''re improvising, that they lack of professionalism as criminals." Until Tuesday, ETA had not claimed a fatal victim since July, when it killed two police officers on the island of Majorca with a bomb.

Polls indicate a significant minority of the inhabitants of the Spanish Basque Country, where Basque language and culture have remained distinct, would like independence, although only a smaller number sympathise with violent groups. In the French
Basque Country, the distinctive Basque language is no longer widely spoken and separatist sentiment is weak.