Protestors have been removed by police as a train carrying nuclear waste left France en route for Germany.
The train will travel via Rouen, Reims and Nancy before crossing the border with Germany at around 9 p.m., and heading northeast.
Protesters have called for rail blockades to disrupt the shipment, the first since 1998. Some 15,000 German police are on alert to prevent a repeat of the violent clashes with demonstrators that took place in the 1990s. German police say they have taken several people into custody.
The shipment of six sealed containers of nuclear waste left Valognes, in northern France, heading to a temporary storage site in Gorleben, in northern Germany. Police were on guard around the French terminal and had taken positions along the train's route.
The waste comes from French state-owned nuclear group Cogema, which operates a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in nearby La Hague.
"The myth of recycling plutonium and uranium has fizzled out, and France is now an international nuclear rubbish bin," Mr Jean-Luc Thierry of Greenpeace said in a statement.
Shipments of nuclear waste between France and Germany were suspended in 1998 after radioactive leaks were discovered on some containers, causing a pileup of spent nuclear fuel at German power plants and of waste at the Cogema plant in La Hague.
The two countries agreed to resume the shipments in January after tightening safety rules. German Environment Minister Mr Juergen Trittin has insisted the country has a duty to take responsibility for its own refuse.
Spent nuclear fuel from German power plants is sent abroad for reprocessing but the contracts oblige Germany to take back the resulting waste.
PA