![\"Ponts](\"https:\/\/archive2.ankakh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Ponts-des-Arts.jpg\")
<\/a><\/h1>\nTourists have been evacuated from one of the most iconic bridges in Paris after it began to crumble under the weight of thousands of ‘love locks’.<\/p>\n
A chunk of the Pont des Arts bridge fell away on Sunday night and the police were called to seal off the area which remains closed today.<\/p>\n
It is a popular custom for tourists to secure a padlock to the bridge branded with their names as a romantic gesture, but the weight of the locks is damaging the metal bridge, which was originally completed in 1804 but rebuilt in the 1980s following damage n the two World Wars.<\/p>\n
It has become common practice for visitors to buy a padlock, attach it to a bridge, and then throw the key into the river, in Paris’s case the Seine.<\/p>\n
The practice has been encouraged by American celebrities including Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, who spent a lot of time dating in Paris before their wedding in Italy last month.<\/p>\n
A ‘Not Love Locks’ campaign was launched in Paris by two Americans in February, in response to some 700,000 padlocks appearing around the city.<\/p>\n
Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist mayor of Paris, has so far resisted calls to take action over the vandalism, but the bridge collapse could change that.<\/p>\n
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