For close to a decade, couples, mainly tourists, but Parisians too, had attached locks, often engraved with their initials, names, or tributes to one another, on the Pont des Arts, before throwing the key into the River Seine - thus symbolically locking their love away forever.

The share weight of the affections caused part of the bridge’s railing to collapse last year and led to its temporary closure.

Officials later launched a campaign encouraging romantics to capture their love with a selfie, rather than sealing it with a lock, but love is old-fashioned it seems, and it failed.

A petition was also started to “save our historic sites”, and it gained some 10,000 signatures, but it is not known what, if any impact, that had on the decision to remove the locks.

Close to one million locks, weighing some 45 tonnes, are believed to be attached to the bridge, which dates back to 1804.

Over the next few days they will be removed, along with locks that later began appearing along the Pont de l’Archeveche, near the Notre Dame cathedral. What will become of the locks is unclear.

The metal grilles on the bridge will be replaced by panels painted by street artists.