text: Both ETA(m) and ETA(pm) refused offers of amnesty, and instead pursued and intensified their violent struggle. The years 1978–1980 were to prove ETA's most deadly, with 68, 76, and 98 fatalities, respectively.
  During the Franco dictatorship, ETA was able to take advantage of tolerance by the French government, which allowed its members to move freely through French territory, believing that in this manner they were contributing to the end of Franco's regime. There is much controversy over the degree to which this policy of "sanctuary" continued even after the transition to democracy, but it is generally agreed that after 1983 the French authorities started to collaborate with the Spanish government against ETA.
  The transition to democracy did not undermine core reasons for the existence of ETA, with a large part of its members remaining committed to armed struggle and local Basque community remaining supportive of it into the 1990s. This was caused by the character of Spanish transition, as it was based on the ‘pact of forgetting’ (). Francoist officials in the army, police and judiciary retained their posts, and no attempt was ever made to hold the representatives of the Francoist regime responsible for political violence and oppression. Left-wing Basque nationalist Rafael Díez Usabiaga recalled: "We confront the flagrant contradiction that in the Spanish state they still have not addressed something so fundamental as the crimes of Francoism."