If you believe Twitter, Paris just ruined romance forever

Is romance dead in Paris?

Some heartbroken tourists think so after the city of love announced the tradition of attaching a so-called "love lock" to the Pont des Arts, a pedestrian walkway spanning the Seine River, was over.

Workers in yellow vests began removing hundreds of thousands of love locks — padlocks left by couples as a symbol of their unbreakable love — from the iconic footbridge on Monday over concerns that the sentimental tokens, estimated to weigh a total of 50 tons, posed a public safety risk. 

Officials had good reason to be worried. A 440-pound section of railing collapsed last year under the weight of all that love. And pleas for tourists to show their feelings with a selfie instead of a heavy padlock have largely fallen on deaf ears.

"We want all the people who are in love, we want them to come to Paris but we don't want them to use love locks," said Bruno Julliard, the first deputy to the mayor of Paris. 

The city council will replace the wire mesh panels holding the love locks with easy-to-clean perspex.

Loved-up tourists whose padlocks are — or at least were — attached to the railing of the bridge connecting the Louvre museum and the Saint-Germain-des-Pres neighborhood took to Twitter to express their sadness.

And people who had been planning to leave a permanent reminder of their passion were also upset. 

The romantic gesture of leaving love locks on the Pont des Arts began in the last 10 years and has since spread like a plague across the city — and around the world — as millions of tourists pledge their love with a padlock and then throw away the key to ensure it lasts forever.

But the locals have become less and less enamored with the increasingly popular tradition.  

There are now at least 11 bridges and four pedestrian walkways over the Seine River and Canal Saint Martin festooned with the barnacle-like padlocks, according to No Love Locks, an advocacy group started by two American women in 2014.

Love locks have also been left on the Eiffel Tower. 

The group has collected more than 10,000 signatures for a petition calling for an outright ban on the "visual and ecological pollution" on the city's historic sites.  

"The sheer ugliness of hundreds of thousands of locks (and their keys, thoughtlessly tossed into the Seine), and the total lack of 'responsible tourism' and consideration shown by those who attach these locks to these historic bridges and monuments, has fired the passions of Parisians and visitors alike," Lisa Anselmo and Lisa Taylor Huff wrote on their website.  

But padlock-leaving couples shouldn't fret. While their padlocks have been removed, their locks won't be wasted: Parisian officials plan to recycle the love locks.