18 March 2010 / AP, PARIS
Spain’s prime minister blamed the Basque separatist group ETA on Wednesday for the shooting death of a French policeman, while France’s anti-terrorism police interrogated one suspect and tried to track down at least one other assailant who escaped.
The shooting on Tuesday of a 53-year-old officer outside Paris marked the first time ETA has killed a member of the French police, Spanish media said. ETA has traditionally used France as a refuge and a staging ground for attacks in Spain. French police have been cracking down on members hiding out in France, and the shooting came soon after the group’s suspected leader was arrested here. “France has paid a high price for its help against ETA,” Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said at an impromptu news conference. A former ETA member said the police killing in the eastern Paris suburb of Dammarie-les-Lys did not appear to be a calculated shift in ETA strategy -- willful violence in a country long spared the type of attacks waged across the border. Rather, he said, it seemed to result from on-the-spot thinking by a unit confronted by police.
