Love unchained from Paris' Pont Neuf

At least 40 tons of "love padlocks" have been removed from the Pont Neuf in Paris. Photo / Getty Images

At least 40 tons of so-called "love padlocks" have been removed in the past two weeks from an iconic Paris bridge across the river Seine after safety concerns were raised.

The deteriorating state of the infrastructure supporting the 16th-century Pont Neuf - the city's oldest standing bridge across the Seine, despite its name - and the safety risk it entailed to the French capital's citizens was the decisive factor leading to the padlocks' urgent removal.

"Forty tons of love padlocks have been removed in the past two weeks," said Deputy Mayor Veronique Levieux, who is in charge of the city's Heritage affairs.

Until new bridge verandahs are installed on the Pont Neuf in 2019, some provisional panels that do not allow the attachment of the romantic forget-me-nots have been put in place.

Couples have flocked to the site for over a decade to perform the symbolic act of attaching a lock with a message to represent their mutual love, often throwing the key into the river for good measure.

Since 2015, the Paris town hall has worked on a padlock-removal strategy involving a number of Seine bridges.

In 2014, a large section of the nearby Pont des Arts' steel-wire verandah collapsed after succumbing to thousands of "cadenas d'amour" - as they are known in French - attached to its side panels that weighed over 50 tons, with the entire grid plunging into the Seine's waters.

The new plate-glass verandahs now installed on both the Pont des Arts and the Pont de l'Archeveche at a cost of 500,000 euros ($841,000) are fully love-lock-proof.

Last year, 165 sets of love padlocks recovered from the Pont des Arts went up for auction with bids ranging from hundreds of euros up to 17,000 euros.