Basque nationalist party shuts down in France

PARIS - Basque nationalist party Batasuna announced Thursday its dissolution in France where it continued to operate after being outlawed in Spain in 2003, local media reported.

"We are announcing the dissolution of Batasuna," Maite Goyenetxe and Jean Claude Aguerre, two members of the party, told journalists at Bayonne in France's Basque region, according to a report of local TV France24.

"We affirm that we will achieve the project of building Euskal Herria (the Basque Country) only by political means, in the face of the oppressive French and Spanish states," Goyenetxe said.

The French branch of the Basque nationalist party, seen by Spain as the political wing of the armed separatist group ETA, has remained active in France after it was banned in Spain.

The party's move to close down in France came after ETA announced a permanent end to its armed struggle in 2011 following a four-decade campaign that has cost 829 lives.