France arrests four armed ETA suspects

French police have arrested four armed Spaniards suspected of membership in the banned Basque separatist movement ETA, police…

French police have arrested four armed Spaniards suspected of membership in the banned Basque separatist movement ETA, police said today.

Three men and a woman were detained yesterday in Saintes, a town some 100 km (60 miles) north of the southwestern French city of Bordeaux, a senior local police officer said.

News of the arrests came the day after Spanish police arrested another ETA suspect in the Spanish Basque province of Guipuzkoa. Mr Oier Imaz was taken to Madrid on suspicion of planning ETA's campaign against tourist interests.

One of western Europe's most violent groups, ETA has killed more than 800 people in more than three decades of violence to press its demands for an independent Basque state in northern Spain and southwestern France.