These "civil disobedience" actions, which were lifted at 4:00 p.m. according to the organizers, aimed to draw attention to the fate of two Basque prisoners in their seventies, Jakes Esnal and Ion Parot, former members of ETA imprisoned for 32 years.
About 1,700 people according to the organizers, 950 according to the prefecture, were spread over ten blocking points of traffic axes, on the Basque coast and inland.
In the jurisdiction of the Bayonne prosecutor's office, 17 people were taken into custody and released at the start of the evening.
Among them, six activists who entered the runways of Biarritz airport on Saturday morning and who will be summoned before a delegate from the prosecutor, an alternative measure to prosecution.
The 11 other people, who lay down on the A63 motorway, will be tried by the Bayonne Criminal Court in January for participating in a prohibited demonstration on the public highway and obstructing traffic, according to the Bayonne prosecutor's office.
In addition, nine activists were arrested after chaining themselves to the railway line just north of Bayonne, in the Landes, and were still in police custody on Saturday evening, according to the Dax prosecutor's office which told AFP that a criminal decision concerning them would be taken by Sunday morning.
This incident on the tracks led to an interruption of rail traffic around 11 a.m. and for three hours in both directions of traffic, between Bayonne and Saint-Vincent-de-Tyrosse (Landes), explained the SNCF. Four TGVs have been delayed, kept in the station, and three TERs removed, replaced by a coach service.
In Biarritz, around noon, around sixty activists blocked the boulevard which connects the motorway, train station and airport. After installing tires and wooden pallets across the road, the demonstrators posted themselves behind a banner displaying the messages "Stop state revenge" and "32 years in prison, that's enough!".
Police personnel were present with reinforcements from the Spanish National Police.
To ban these actions planned for a long time by Bake Bidea and Artisans de la paix activists, the prefect explained on Friday that they posed "a serious risk to the safety and health of people", residents and tourists, by this day of crossover classified red by Bison Futé.
On Saturday, the prefecture estimated that "despite the threats of total blockage", the territory "was not blocked at any time".
The organizers, through the voice of Anaiz Funosas, spokesperson for the Bake Bidea movement, on the other hand congratulated themselves on having "blocked the Basque Country" and "achieved all the objectives set".
Ms Funosas warned that if Ion Parot and Jakes Esnal "were not released" on September 22, the date of a decision by the Sentencing Division of the Paris Court of Appeal on their requests for conditional release , "this dynamic will go crescendo".
