Looming on Luxembourg's southern horizon, the French nuclear power station in Cattenom is a perpetual visual reminder of how susceptible the Grand Duchy would be were there a nuclear accident.

But, an even more striking reminder was presented to people in Luxembourg City on Monday when environmental group Luxembourg Greenpeace created a mock nuclear contamination zone.

Anti-nuclear campaigners laid out 200 black and white atomic crosses along the grass in front of Fort Thüngen in Kirchberg.

The choice of the historic fortifications as backdrop to the political display was a deliberate one. The site dates back more than 300 years but even this passage of time would not be enough to allow for the damage of nuclear contamination to be undone, acccording to Luxembourg Greenpeace spokesman Roger Spautz of Greenpeace.

While countries such as Germany have drawn conclusions from the nuclear accident in Fukushima, France continues to rely on its network of 58 nuclear reactors to generate energy. It says that by observing a two to ten kilometre distance between plants and conurbations, the risk of contamination is minimal. However, Greenpeace warns that following a serious nuclear incident, it would need to create exclusion zones of up to 300 kilometres.

The unusual statement comes the same day it emerged that Cattenom failed a recent stress test. Greenpeace was sceptical about the stress tests, which do not look at the impact of natural and man-made disasters such as earthquakes, floods or terrorist attacks on the safety of a plant.