Germany heads for nuclear showdown

There were large protests over the weekend

By Patrick Bartlett near Gorleben

Protesters have massed in northern Germany to try to block a controversial shipment of nuclear waste on its way from a reprocessing plant in France.

The demonstrators have set up so-called resistance camps close to the railway line and are threatening to attack the tracks and stage sit-ins at strategic points.

A 17,000-strong police force is on high alert for potentially violent clashes with the anti-nuclear campaigners.

Police fear a repeat of 1997's clashes

It is the first such shipment since 1997, when pitched battles raged for days between riot police and protesters.

Over the weekend, peaceful demonstrations were held along the route to the storage site.

The shipment left by rail from La Hague in France at first light, and will cross the German border on Monday night.

This normally quiet, rural corner of Germany is now swarming with battle-ready police - their aim, to prevent thousands of anti-nuclear protesters from blocking the railway line leading to the town of Dannenberg.

That is where the train from France is expected to deposit its cargo of six nuclear fuel containers late on Tuesday.

The radioactive waste must then be loaded on to trucks for transfer by road to Gorleben.

Heated debate

The well-organised activists face what is almost certainly the biggest post-war police operation mounted on German soil.

The looming battle at Gorleben is the consequence of a highly-charged debate in Germany about nuclear power.

Last year, the coalition government of Social Democrats and Greens struck a deal to phase out nuclear energy.

But the compromise reached with industry would allow some reactors to remain in service for more than 20 years - far too long for anti-nuclear hardliners.

While the government argues that Germany has a moral duty to take back its reprocessed nuclear waste, opponents see disrupting the shipments as the most effective way of forcing an early shutdown of the industry.

It is thought Germany will need to take back two shipments a year for at least the next decade.