Separatists blamed for bomb attack

Shots were fired at the same restaurant last month

A woman has been killed in an explosion outside a McDonald's restaurant in western France.

The Interior Ministry confirmed that the blast, which happened at 1000 (0800GMT) was caused by a bomb left at the entrance.

The victim, Laurence Turbec, 28, was an employee at the restaurant at Quevert, just outside Dinan in northern Brittany.

Police linked the attack with a bomb defused earlier on Wednesday at a post office in the Brittany capital, Rennes, thought to have been planted by the pro-independence Breton Revolutionary Army (ARB).

"We are intimately and intuitively convinced that it's the ARB and that it was also the ARB at Rennes," an investigator said.

No-one has claimed responsibility for either of the bombs.

The force of the blast blew out windows and part of the roof of the restaurant, according to the rescue workers.

The victim, who had been standing in a doorway, was hurled into nearby bushes.

Seven other people, including two staff, were in the premises at the time.

The French Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, expressed his condolences to the family of the victim, and said that "nothing can justify these forms of blind terrorism".

President Jacques Chirac also condemned the attack.

Frequent target

The head of France's special anti-terrorism judicial division, Irene Stoller, visited Quevert for a brief inspection of the blast site.

Irene Stoller, left, inspected the blast site

McDonald's restaurants in France have regularly been the target of protests against globalisation.

Farm leader Jose Bove is to go on trial in June after the destruction of the building site of a McDonald's restaurant last year.

Rene Benoit, the mayor of Dinan, said three bullets had been fired at the window of the McDonald's in Dinan a month ago.

The management had not received any threats, he said.

Separatist group

The ARB has been blamed for an increasing number of attacks in recent months.

The three sticks of dynamite used in the bomb defused in Rennes were part of a stock of nearly eight tons of dynamite stolen in September from a company in the Brittany town of Plevin.

Police later recovered some five tons of the explosives, and arrested nearly a dozen Breton and Basque separatists.