Bronislaw Geremek, a leading thinker in Poland's anti-communist Solidarnosc movement and a former Foreign Minister, was killed in a car crash yesterday, aged 76.

Mr Geremek had been driving his Mercedes saloon near the western Polish town of Lubien when it veered into the opposite lane and collided head-on with an oncoming van, police spokesman Hanna Wachowiak said.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski, a political opponent of Mr Geremek's, said he was "deeply saddened" by the news.

The European Commission and France, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, hailed Mr Geremek as "a great conscience" of his country for his championing of liberal democracy under the communist regime and his later advocacy of European unity.

"He was a European of exceptional stature, a Pole of unwavering convictions. All his life he demonstrated political courage without compromise," said José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission.

"I hope future generations rem-ember Bronislaw Geremek as an example of a free spirit and that he stays in our memory as one of the most powerful symbols of liberation against all oppression." The bearded, pipe-smoking Mr Geremek was a respected historian and author of numerous books, including on mediaeval European history, his academic speciality. He also sat in the Liberal group in the European Parliament.

"He was a friend of old, a great conscience of Poland, one of the great intellectuals of central Europe," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and France's European Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Jouyet said in a joint statement.

Mr Geremek had belonged to the reform wing of Poland's ruling Communist Party as a young man but quit in 1968 to protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and the extinguishing of that country's democracy movement.