Paris will auction the "locks of love" that once adorned its bridges on Saturday. 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. The city hopes to raise at least $163,000 from the sale, he said. Proceeds will go to charities helping refugees.
Although the origins of the love-lock trend 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-Prés neighborhood since 1804. As they ran out of room on the Pont des Arts, lovers sought out other bridges, rails on the Seine'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 441-pound 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 Parisian bridges since. The locks have been removed and grates have been replaced by glass panes, preventing new love locks from appearing. The charity auction will be conducted by the Credit Municipal de Paris, a local government-managed bank that offers loans and funding help to disadvantaged Parisians. Money raised has been earmarked for nonprofit organizations to fund aid for refugees as the French capital struggles to cope with an influx of migrants from Africa and the Middle East.
"Already from our online site, we can see that the auction is attracting much attention, notably from abroad," said Theo Recoules, a Paris City Hall adviser in charge of the auction. "This bodes well for the sale." The foreigners most interested are Americans, "a very romantic lot," followed by Italians, Brits, Russians and Chinese, he said.
A 90-page auction catalog describes 165 batches, ranging from straight handfuls of locks to elaborate presentations, some of which include a bridge grid.
The batches on sale include locks from the Archbishop's bridge, which leads to the island on which the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral stands. In all, the batches for sale represent around 7 percent of the total weight of the locks that were removed.
