BAYONNE, France – A bomb exploded in a real-estate agency in southwest France and a Basque independence slogan was spray-painted on the building's facade, police said Thursday. No injuries were reported.
The explosive device went off overnight, hours before dawn on Christmas Day, in the town of Anglet in the Pyrenees, local police said. The office suffered damage, and the phrase "Basque country is not for sale" was written across the facade.
The same phrase was sprayed on other real-estate agencies in the region in a wave of bombings last year.
Anglet Mayor Jean Espilondo says the Christmas attack was "unacceptable" and warned that future explosions could threaten human lives.
Meanwhile, police said a home-made explosive was found Thursday near a health and beauty center in the resort town of Capbreton, also in France's Basque country. Police spokesman Bertrand Ponty said officers defused the bomb before it exploded.
Capbreton, on the Atlantic Coast, was the site of the shooting death of two Spanish officers a year ago by suspected militants of the armed Basque group ETA.
ETA has waged a sometimes violent campaign for an independent Basque homeland in northern Spain and southwest France since the 1960s.
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