ETA gunmen kill Spanish policeman in France

PARIS - ETA suspects shot and killed a Spanish Guardia Civil policeman in France on Saturday, French police said, the Basque separatist group's first killing since it abandoned a ceasefire in June.

A second Guardia Civil was seriously injured in the shooting in the French resort of Capbreton, 20 km (12 miles) from the southern city of Biarritz.

The two plain-clothed officers were taking part in a surveillance operation with French police when they were shot at point blank range as they were getting into their cars around 0830 GMT, a police source told Reuters.

Police were hunting two men and a woman who fled the scene.

The killing was the first by ETA since it called off a 15-month-old ceasefire on June 5 -- which it had effectively already broken by bombing Madrid airport last December.

Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba confirmed that one of the policemen had been killed and the other seriously wounded and said they had been shot as they left a restaurant.

"Since ETA broke the ceasefire, they continue to want to kill," Rubalcaba said at a meeting of EU interior ministers near Potsdam, Germany. "They achieved that today. Prison awaits them. They will be relentlessly pursued using all available means."

French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said ETA was trying to use France as a refuge and a base to prepare attacks. Every effort was being made to catch the culprits, she added.

ETA has killed more than 800 people in four decades of armed struggle for independence for ancient Basque territories in northern Spain and southern France.

Polls show most inhabitants of Spain's Basque Country, which already enjoys considerable autonomy, do not want full separation from Spain.

Spain's ruling Socialist party said it had cancelled a political rally due to be held in Madrid later on Saturday. The Spanish government said Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero had rung opposition leader Mariano Rajoy to tell him of the attack.

French anti-terrorist investigators are to launch a formal investigation into the shooting, police said.