French police arrest eight Basque separatists

PARIS (Reuters) - French police arrested eight Basque separatists in raids across southwestern France Tuesday, a source at the Paris anti-terrorist prosecutors' office said.

Among those arrested was Zigor Goieaskoetxea, a senior member of Batasuna, a Basque separatist party that has been banned in Spain as the political wing of armed group ETA. The group remains legal in France.

ETA has killed more than 800 people in four decades of armed struggle for an independent Basque homeland carved out of southwestern France and northern Spain.

Goieaskoetxea had been arrested in October but was released due to lack of evidence.

In Tuesday's operation, police searched several bars in French Basque Country that are suspected of being used for funding illegal activities.

French experts on Basque issues say police are trying to pin down links between the separatist group ETA and Batasuna, which has an office in the French Basque city of Bayonne.

Spain has been pressuring France to ban Batasuna, as Madrid did in 2003. French judges have resisted, saying they lacked proof the French arm of Batasuna was funding the armed organisation.

Askatasuna, a group defending the rights of Basque prisoners, denounced Tuesday's raid as a new example of harassment of Basque activists. It said police were being used by anti-terrorist prosecutors in Paris.

French police have conducted several big raids against people close to Batasuna, including one in September when 14 people were arrested. All were later released without charge.

(Reporting by Thierry Leveque in Paris and Claude Canellas in Bordeaux; Writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Catherine Bosley)