Paris known to be the city of love has decided to take out its iconic fence filled with love locks. Paris's famous bridge closes down this week for the removal of brass locks purporting to symbolize the unending love of visiting tourists. Signs in both French and in English have been put up near the bridge to notify citizens and tourists about this closure. A city hall campaign to save the bridges of Paris from the weight of hundreds of thousands of brass locks has not checked the ardour of crowds of tourists, who continue to view Paris as the City of Love.
Paris started removing the padlocks from the Pont des Arts on Monday, effectively ending the tourist's tradition of attaching love locks with initials on them on the bridge and shattering the dreams of many who have not yet visited Paris. For several years, people have been visiting the bridge to attach locks with sentimental messages symbolizing the couples love and affection towards each other. Some would also further seal the deal by throwing the key into the Seine River below the bridge.
A 2006 Italian young adult novel-turned-film is thought to have created this practice which started in Rome. In 2008 it came to Paris and the problems started to arose in 2012, said Lisa Anselmo, co-founder of advocacy group No Love Locks.
The fence itself is considered a touristic and artistic piece however; sections of the fencing on the bridge have crumbled under the locks' weights. The amount of locks available has become so numerous that the bridge carries more than 700,000 locks which are roughly the same of the weight of 20 elephants combined.
The phenomenon spread to other bridges, creating two major concerns for the city: "degradation of property heritage and a risk to the safety of visitors, Parisians and tourists," the Paris City Council said on its website.
The city previously launched an unsuccessful initiative in August 2014 trying to end the practice, urging visitors to instead take selfies on the bridge. Unsightly wooden panels were placed over the locks in February to discourage the practice for Valentine's Day.
The removal of the locks is a "strong first step after a long time of inaction," Anselmo said. But the problem is not only limited to Pont des Arts; there are more than more than one million locks on at least 11 bridges and other landmarks across France, including the Eiffel Tower, she said.
Paris therefore had to do something in order to save its heritage sites from crumbling and getting distorted because of the locks said Anselmo in an email.
"With the tourist industry still promoting the trend and romanticizing it, it's going to be an uphill battle," she said. "Paris will probably need to institute a ban, like Rome did, to finally get a handle on the problem. Our followers are clamoring for that because they are fed up with what's happening to their city."
While there's no love lost as far as some Parisians are concerned, some would-be tourists are lamenting their missed opportunity.
C. Maalouf
