These love locks seemed like a cute idea at first, but they soon got completely out of hand. On a Sunday afternoon, June 8, 2014, at 5:50 pm a 2.4 meter section of the wire mesh fence on the Pont des Arts collapsed under the weight of the love locks. Police said there were no casualties, but the footbridge was immediately evacuated and closed off. Fortunately only a section of the fence had collapsed, not the entire bridge. On June 1, 2015, the Pont des Arts was closed for one week while nearly a million love-locks, weighing 45 tons, were removed. Temporary wooden panels (with paintings by various artists) were installed instead of the wire-mesh fences on the sides of the bridge. A few months later these were replaced by the unbreakable glass panels that are still there today. (From my blog post https://operasandcycling.com/pont-des-arts-without-the-love-locks/ )
These love locks seemed like a cute idea at first, but they soon got completely out of hand. On a Sunday afternoon, June 8, 2014, at 5:50 pm a 2.4 meter section of the wire mesh fence on the Pont des Arts collapsed under the weight of the love locks. Police said there were no casualties, but the footbridge was immediately evacuated and closed off. Fortunately only a section of the fence had collapsed, not the entire bridge. On June 1, 2015, the Pont des Arts was closed for one week while nearly a million love-locks, weighing 45 tons, were removed. Temporary wooden panels (with paintings by various artists) were installed instead of the wire-mesh fences on the sides of the bridge. A few months later these were replaced by the unbreakable glass panels that are still there today.
(From my blog post https://operasandcycling.com/pont-des-arts-without-the-love-locks/ )