Germany is bracing itself for the biggest anti-nuclear demonstrations for decades, just as the Parliament has endorsed a controversial legislation to extend the life of the country's nuclear reactors on an average by another 12 years.
The demonstrations planned for the weekend are against the transportation of 123 tonnes of highly radioactive nuclear waste from the French nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in La Hague to Germany's temporary storage site for radioactive wastes in Gorleben, in the state of Lower Saxony.
But the anti-nuclear activists are also determined to use the occasion to vent their anger over the centre-right coalition government's decision to reverse a time plan set by a former government to phase out Germany's all 17 nuclear reactors latest by 2020.
Even though the transportation of radioactive wastes from La Hague to Gorleben is not new, and every time a few hundred hard-core activists staged protest actions to block the transport of special containers carrying the wastes, thousands of anti-atom opponents from all over the country are expected to take part in this weekend's protests.
A special train carrying 11 containers of radioactive wastes of spent fuel from Germany's reactors, left Valgnes, in northern France yesterday afternoon.
The exact route of the special train has been kept a secret to prevent demonstrators from staging blockades and other protest actions along the 1,000-KM route.
Police expects several thousand demonstrators to take part in protect actions at Dannenburg, in Lower Saxony, where the containers will be loaded on trucks for the final lap of their journey to Gorleben.
Anti-nuclear campaigners have been blaming the government for dividing the nation by reviving an issue, which has been long settled. Recent opinion polls showed that more than 60 per cent of the German public is against extending the life of the reactors.
The government's legislation crossed its last parliamentary hurdle yesterday when the Bundesrat cleared it without a debate.
The upper house decided that the bill did not require a debate in the house, rejecting a request from the opposition for a vote on the bill.