mmarsh, The Basque country is divided in three provinces: Vizcaya, Guipuzcoa and Álava. Only Guipuzcoa is near France, the other two are a litle bit in the west. The part of southern France that ETA claims as theirs is called Iparralde. You can see the map where they want to make their state here:
Map
The reason of the ceasefire is because they want to start their secesionist process. To mantein the truce they gave three conditions:
- Referendum asking the Basques if they want independance-
- Independace
- Stop police and judicial persecution.
Mmarsh, every day there are more proves that point that ETA had something to do with the 11-M terrorist attacks, may be they did not put the bombs, but they helped the ones that did it. I have opened another threat to talk about this in the political area. The judicial investigation concerning the 11-m attacks is showing that there are many black holes, fake proves and a lot of dirty stuff.
In other order of things, there is not public toleration of ETA in Spain, only a few thousand people (around 15.000) in the Basque country support them, Remember that in Spain lives over 40 million people.
Phoenix80, yes, we are looking the cease of fire (not peace agreement) very carefully. Be had 13 before. It is a conditional truce, they will stop killing if they get the independance, and that is not going to happen, I can tell you. So the truce is "wet papper" (do you have this expression in english?:sarc: )