French police arrested two suspected members of the armed Basque separatist group ETA today, including a man seen as chief of the group's international operations, Spain's interior minister said.
"We're talking about a big operation ... He (the suspect) was the chief of the international arm of the group," Mr Jose Antonio Alonso told reporters.
A senior local police officer confirmed that anti-terrorist and local police had made the arrests near Caussade, close to the southern city of Toulouse.
Officers later carried out a number of searches following the arrests, he said.
Spanish and French police have detained 56 ETA suspects this year, an extension of a crackdown that has weakened Western Europe's most active guerrilla group.
ETA has killed more than 800 people since 1968 in demand of an independent Basque state but has not carried out a fatal attack for nearly two years.