Picking the right lockdown target

Picking locks as a ‘hobby’ is not a contention that would pass muster in most law enforcement circles around the world. More so when the amateur picklock is known to use his talent to bypass certain lockdown restrictions put in by coronavirus-conscious governments right now. But, then, times of crises also throw up unlikely heroes and the man who has been ‘liberating’ parks in the poorer districts of Paris recently by picking the locks on their gates at night is clearly one such. Admittedly, Paris circa 2020 is a far cry from 1940, but the spirit of resistance still prevails apparently. That his small act of defiance allows many Parisians cooped up in small flats to enjoy a bit of fresh nocturnal air has, no doubt, gone a long way in giving him the aura of a folk hero, with ‘Thank you, Jose’ signs in liberated parks cementing his popularity.

Locks and Paris have had a love-hate relationship, given that the hundreds of them — so-called ‘love locks’ — affixed by romantic tourists on the railings of pedestrian bridges across the Seine since 2008 actually led to part of a parapet of the Pont des Arts falling off in 2014, much to the dismay of locals. It is also befitting that the mayor who spearheaded the removal of those love locks from bridges in 2015 is now asking central authorities to allow locks on Parisian park gates to go too.