A train carrying Germany's first shipments of nuclear waste to Britain for three years rolled across the border into France today.
Police said protests against the transport were small and peaceful.
Two trains carrying a total of five wagons of spent nuclear fuel rods from power plants in Neckarwestheim and Biblis were linked up in the town of Woerth near the border and passed without incident into France en route to a reprocessing plant at Sellafield in northwest England.
About 100 anti-nuclear protesters demonstrated in isolated groups along the 12 kilometre (eight mile) stretch of track leading to the French border. Police detained about 20 of them.
Anti-nuclear activists trying to block railway tracks clashed with police earlier this month when Germany took back the first reprocessed waste from France since it lifted a ban on shipments imposed in 1998 because of concerns about radioactive leaks.
Activists claim Sellafield, in Cumbria, England, is dangerous to people living nearby.