By Jason Webb MADRID, March 7 (Reuters) - Spain's prime minister accused the conservative opposition on Wednesday of recklessly setting ordinary Spaniards against one another as it prepared mass demonstrations against Basque guerrillas ETA. In a rowdy Senate debate which echoed heated discussions in bars and homes across Spain, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero justified his government's decision last week to grant house arrest to a hunger-striking ETA commander. "This whole debate is riddled with hypocrisy and cynicism," Zapatero told the opposition Popular Party, warning that its criticism of the search for a peaceful solution to the Basque conflict had "consequences for social cohesion". The transfer home of convicted killer Inaki de Juana Chaos has raised the temperature of an already feverish polemic about the Socialist government's attempts to seek a settlement with ETA. Anti-government demonstrations by protesters waving Spanish flags have clogged central Madrid on an almost weekly basis. The PP has called more protests around Spain on Friday and in Madrid the following day. While the government has a narrow opinion poll lead over the opposition, surveys show a majority of Spaniards disapprove of allowing De Juana Chaos to serve out his time at home. The government, which called off peace talks with ETA after it killed two people with a bomb at Madrid airport in December, says De Juana Chaos would have starved himself to death if he had not been moved. He has already completed sentences for killing 25 people in the 1980s, but went on hunger strike when he was given additional time for making threats. Newspaper El Pais, which has close links to the Socialists, said the government feared his death would have weakened the position of ETA moderates who want to restart peace talks. But the PP's Senate leader, Pio Garcia Escudero, accused Zapatero of "giving in to terrorist blackmail". "And now you're afraid of the reaction of Spanish society, which you have humiliated, Mr. Zapatero," Garcia Escudero said. Opposition senators shouted "resign" and were repeatedly called to order during Zapatero's reply, during which he said the last PP government had released hundreds of ETA prisoners before their sentences were up. With national elections next year, the chances for fresh peace talks with ETA any time soon look slim. The guerrillas have killed more than 850 people since 1968 in their violent campaign for an independent Basque state in northern Spain and southwestern France. However, mass arrests have weakened ETA in recent years and most Basques tell pollsters they do not want independence.
