French police have arrested three members of the Basque separatist organisation Eta, including one believed to be the new military leader of the group, the French government says.

"Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie ... congratulates the police ... who arrested three members of the Basque terrorist organisation Eta, including one who has already been identified as Balak, the presumed successor to Txeroki as the military head of Eta," a statement from the interior ministry said on Monday.

The arrests, made near Bagneres-de-Bigorre in southwestern France, are the latest in a series of captures of senior Eta figures.
   
Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina, known by his alias Txeroki, was arrested in France last month. He is believed to be behind attacks including the bombing of Madrid airport in 2006.

Spanish media named the most senior man arrested on Monday as Aitziol Iriondo, and one of the others as Eneko Zarrabeitia.
   
The arrests follow the December 3 fatal shooting of a 71-year-old businessman in the Basque town of Azpeitia, which the Spanish government blamed on Eta.

Spanish authorities say the group has been reduced to a relatively small number of fighters. But it has continued to carry out regular bombings.
   
Eta began its violent campaign for the independence of traditional Basque "territories" in northern Spain and southwest France in the late years of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco in the 1960s.

It has killed more than 800 people in four decades.