PARIS, Jan 9: France’s four principal anti-terrorism judges are to receive 24-hour protection in the wake of the discovery by police of a plot to assassinate one of them.

Laurence Le Vert, the judge concerned, is a specialist in the field, and more recently in charge of the fight against the ETA, the Basque separatist organization.

It was in an ETA hideout located at Pau, near the Franco-Spanish border, that police came across a sheet of paper two weeks ago that revealed ETA militants had access to private information about the judge, leading police to believe that the organization was preparing to assassinate the 51-year-old magistrate.

In 1996, Mrs Le Vert figured on an ETA hit list that also included the names of then interior minister Charles Pasqua, police commissioner Roger Marion who was then the country’s leading anti-terrorism official, and a prominent politician Jean-Louis Debre, who is presently president of the French national assembly.