The 12 containers of more than 170 tonnes of treated nuclear power plant waste finally rolled into the storage facility at dawn with pro-environment protesters attempting to block their path up to the last moment.

Susanne Kamien, one of the protest leaders, said demonstrators had delayed the train for around 11 hours on its journey from the La Hague reprocessing plant in northwestern France.

Around 15,000 police guarded the route of the train in Germany alone.

Protesters argue that the shipments are dangerous and that their lengthy storage could allow radioactive material to infiltrate the water supply.

The demonstrators said they had succeeded in sending a "clear message" to the new coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, which was to be sworn in on Tuesday.

"If they simply carry on making nuclear waste, there will continue to be resistance here," said Jochen Stay from the coalition of anti-nuclear activists.

The state of Lower Saxony where the Gorleben facility is based wants shipments to be put on hold in 2006 because of the strain it would place on the police in a year when they will also have to provide security for the World Cup finals.

"The World Cup is a real burden for the police," said the state's interior minister, Uwe Schuenemann.

During the last such shipment to Germany in November 2004, a French protester was killed when he was run over by a train in the eastern French city of Nancy.

The nuclear waste is produced in German power plants, but sent to France because Germany has no waste reprocessing plants.

France insists that the waste be returned to the countries that produced it.

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