But the popularity of the love locking trend only really took off after the release of the Italian movie “Ho Voglia di Te” (I want you) in 2007. It was inspired by the like-named novel, from the hand of Italian author Federico Moccia, which was published a year before. One scene features the protagonists locking their love by attaching a padlock to a lamppost at thePonte Milvo in Rome and throwing the key into the Tiber river. //
It didn’t take long for young European fans to pick up on this hype. In 2008, the first padlocks of love appeared in the City of Love. Because of its convenient steel frame and romantic location, the Pont des Arts soon became the Love Lock Bridge in Paris. //
In 2014, the Paris Love Lock bridge literally succumbed to the weight of all that love. The grilles of the Pont des Arts were not strong enough to carry hundreds of kilos in padlocks. With over 700,000 locks in total, weighing 45 tonnes or the equivalent of 20 elephants, and the prospect of another 7,500 locks added each year, an intervention was needed to guarantee the public safety and save this iconic Parisian brige.
In August 2014, the Paris Mayor’s Office launched the campaign “Love without Locks” in which they tried to convince tourists to find other ways to celebrate their love on the padlocks bridge. But no picnic or selfie could convince lovers to refrain from hanging even more tokens of everlasting love. The City of Paris had no other option but to remove the padlocks. On June 1 2015, the grilles were removed and eventually replaced with glass panels to prevent history from repeating itself.
The same was done at other Paris bridges, ones that also suffered from the love lock craze: The Pont de l’Archevêché at the southern tip of the Île de la Cité and the Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor that connects the Orsay Museum to the Tuileries Garden.
