BERLIN, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- Tens of thousands of people from across Germany and neighboring countries, including France, Denmark and Austria, rallied in downtown Berlin on Saturday to protest against possible extension of nuclear power reactors in Germany.

    The parade, starting from the central railway station and ending in the landmark Brandenburg Gate, was led by over 300 farming tractors. An organizer told Xinhua that he predicted over 30,000 people participated in the demonstration.

    People were holding high banners like "shutting down nuclear reactors", "nuclear, no", shouting similar slogans.

    The future of Germany's 17 nuclear power plants, due to be shutdown by the early 2020s, is one of the major issues that separates Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) from the center-left Social Democrats (SPD).

    The CDU, along with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), would like to extend that deadline, a move that is opposed by the SPD and environmentalist Greens.

    One organizer of the rally, who merely revealed he was from a town near Hamburg, said as the general election is to held later this month and people fear that the CDU and the FDP, the two possible winners of the election, would give green light to extension of nuclear reactors.

    The parade ran through the street where a regional office of the FDP is located, and heavy police force were stationed to mar possible assault.

    The tractor drivers, who led the rally, were farmers mainly from Wendland, a region in north-central Germany, where plans calls for permanent waste disposal sites.

    SPD chancellor candidate, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, on Friday went so far as to accuse the CDU and FDP "of leading the country into an energy policy dead-end and endangering domestic security."

    The SPD and Greens argue that polls show that a majority of Germans - around 59 percent - oppose nuclear energy and want the plants shut down, while the CDU and FDP emphasize that until Germany has built up a significant infrastructure of alternative energies, nuclear power plants should remain on line.

    In 2001, the SPD-Green government under former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder pushed through legislation to phase out the use of nuclear energy within two decades, despite protests from industry and power utilities.

    Germany covers about 23 percent of its energy consumption with nuclear power, compared to 42 percent with coal-fired power stations, 14 percent with natural gas and 15 percent with renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and thermal.