The biggest-ever shipment of spent nuclear fuel from Germany made steady progress across France today in the face of protests by environmental activists, officials said.
About 20 Green party militants tried to halt the shipment at Darnetal in northern France just after dawn by chaining themselves to the tracks, but the police quickly cut them free allowing the train to pass.
Yesterday, five activists chained themselves to the tracks at the Bischeim train station, close to France's border with Germany, but were swiftly moved on.
A spokeswoman for the French nuclear processing agency Cogema said the convoy, containing some 100 spent fuel rods, was expected to arrive at La Hague plant near Cherbourg just before midday (11 a.m. Irish time), less than an hour behind schedule.
"The original shipment from Germany comprised 12 wagons but split in two shortly after crossing into France," the Cogema spokeswoman said. Three wagons headed off for a reprocessing plant in the British town of Sellafield, and nine nuclear waste containers headed for La Hague.
The spokeswoman said the shipment was larger than normal because a convoy planned for last month had been cancelled at the last moment and subsequently hitched onto the August batch.
The transport of German nuclear waste for reprocessing abroad was started again in April after a three-year interruption.
The restart follows the so-called Atom Consensus agreed between the German federal government and the power industry on the abandonment of nuclear energy by 2020.
As part of the consensus, the reprocessing of spent fuel rods abroad is allowed until 2005. In return, Germany will take back reprocessed waste and transport it to the temporary storage site in Gorleben.