Love for sale: Paris auctions lovers' locks from its bridges

Paris on Saturday May 13 auctioned the "locks of love" that once adorned the French capital's bridges. Clamped there by tourists and lovers over the past decade, the locks, whose weight brought some structures to near-collapse, were considered an eyesore by Parisians.

"This is the first-ever auction of love locks in the world," auctioneer Olivier Collin du Bocage said in a phone interview. The city hopes to raise between 150,000 euros (S$229,380) and 200,000 euros from the sale, he said. 

Proceeds will go to charities helping refugees. 

For years tourists in Paris had inscribed their initials on padlocks and hooked them to the railings of bridges, most famously the Pont des Arts near the Louvre, throwing the key into the River Seine to express their undying love.

But officials cracked down on the practice and started removing the locks in 2015, after one section of the Pont des Arts collapsed under the weight of thousands of locks.

Although the origins of the love-lock trend, which started around a decade ago, are unclear, it became a global phenomenon, with locks found on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, the Great Wall of China, near the Millennium Bridge in London and on Stockholm's bridges.

In the French capital, much to the dismay of Parisians, it became a tradition for lovers, mostly tourists, to attach metal locks to bridges, starting with the Pont des Arts, a metal and wooden pedestrian structure that has linked the Louvre museum to the left-bank Saint-Germain-des-Pres neighbourhood since 1804.

As they ran out of room on the Pont des Arts, lovers sought out others bridges, rails on the Seine River's banks and street lamps, triggering a massive outcry from the city's residents.

In 2015, Paris City authorities removed the locks from the Pont des Arts, following the collapse of a 200-kg grate. The estimated 50-ton weight of the locks was seen to be threatening the structure, which is on the Unesco's World Heritage sites list.

Much water has flown under Paris's bridges since. The locks have been removed and grates have been replaced by glass panes, preventing new love locks from appearing.