Speaking to police officers, Sarkozy said the group would be “pursued and punished with the utmost severity.”“One of the members of this gang of killers is currently being held and we have quite precise information that will allow us to find his accomplices,” he said.Officer Jean-Serge Nerin, 52, was shot dead on Tuesday in a suburb near Paris after his patrol intercepted a vehicle speeding away from the scene of a car theft. A Spanish man, believed to belong to ETA, was arrested at the scene and the rest of the group involved in the shootout is still being hunted by police.
Nerin is thought to be the first French policeman to have been killed by ETA, which has come under increasing pressure after a string of arrests of senior leaders in Spain and France.
“France will not be intimidated by Spanish terrorists,” Sarkozy said. “Spain is a democracy. We stand side by side with Spanish democracy and we will fight terrorists.”
Sarkozy said he had spoken by telephone with King Juan Carlos and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero, who will attend the funeral of the officer next Tuesday.
