CHERBOURG, France (AFP) - A ship carrying 140 kilograms (308 pounds) of deadly plutonium from weapons arsenals in the United States docked in the French port of Cherbourg, the Areva nuclear processing company announced.
A second vessel which had also crossed the Atlantic, leaving from North Carolina on the eastern seaboard of the United States, stayed offshore as it was not carrying nuclear materials, the company added.
Local police said that activists of the anti-nuclear group Greenpeace did not make efforts to stop the ship, the British-registered Pacific Pintail, from docking.
An AFP journalist in Cherbourg said the vessel was monitored by helicopters as it sailed into the port.
The nuclear material is to later be taken under military escort by road to a nuclear plant at La Hague, not far from Cherbourg, and from there across France to a reprocessing factory in the southeastern town of Cadarache.
On Tuesday, Greenpeace activists for several hours blocked a nearby road along which the nuclear cargo is due to be taken after being unloaded at Cherbourg.
The two European companies involved in the operation, France's Areva and British Nuclear Fuel Limited, on Tuesday successfully applied to a Cherbourg court for an order preventing Greenpeace activists from approaching the cargo.
The court also ordered Greenpeace to pay 75,000 euros for blocking the road.
One Greenpeace militant at Tuesday's protest, a German named Thomas Breuer, said the organisation wanted "to focus attention on this very dangerous and completely unneccesary transport."
Greenpeace has said the long distances of road transport involved constituted "considerable" risk, not least because the cargo's containers could easily be cracked open by terrorists using shoulder-launched rockets.
Authorities had kept the docking date and hour a strict secret, citing security reasons, and forcing protesters to hold all-night vigils at the port.