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Fearful France Tightens Security Along Spanish Border NewsMax.com WiresHENDAYE, France – Border police tightened security Thursday between France and Spain after train bombings in Madrid that killed more than 170 people and wounded hundreds of others. Police stopped people on foot and searched cars and other vehicles, creating traffic jams at several checkpoints between the two countries, including Hendaye and Behobie. At the Biriatou border crossing, heavy trucks were stopped for security checks. The French Basque region has long been a haven for militant Spanish Basques, although it has largely been spared the violence that has scarred the Spanish Basque provinces, just across the border. President Jacques Chirac condemned the Madrid attacks and pledged "solidarity with Spain in fighting against this abominable scourge." "Nothing ever justifies barbarity. Democracies must be and will be united in combatting this without weakness," Chirac said. Cooperation between the two countries has been stepped up in the last few years. French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said in a message of sympathy that France would "contribute to strengthening increasingly tight cooperation with the kingdom of Spain." More than 130 Basque militants are being held in French prisons, half of them convicted of terror crimes and the rest awaiting trial, according to judicial officials. Spanish officials blamed Thursday's bombings on the Basque separatist group ETA. The leader of an outlawed Basque party linked to the group denied the attack was the work of ETA. France has arrested numerous Spanish ETA members hiding out in the French Basque region, located in the southwest near the Pyrenees Mountains. ETA is known to have used France to supply its network with explosives. It allegedly joined up with Breton Revolutionary Army, a tiny separatist movement in Brittany in western France, to steal eight tons of dynamite from a warehouse in 1999. Some of the explosives are thought to have been used in attacks by ETA and the Breton group.
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