We visited Paris in late May, 2015. The city was just days away from removing thousands of locks placed on the pedestrian bridges that cross the Seine River which runs through the heart of Paris. The solution consists of removing the wire mesh railings and replacing them with plexiglas, or simply covering the wire mesh with plexiglas, or with what they think looks like 'art'. Here's an example (which looks like crap to me):
This is an invitation for major amounts of graffiti, which is a plague in Paris just about everywhere.
We were very glad to see the locks before they were gone forever and wish there was a way they could still be there.
