Has Paris' title as romance capital been lost?

The Romanian gypsies will steal your roses before you hand them over and your wallet as well as iPhone 5

Maybe. Some people think of Italy as romantic too.

I presume that you are from the UK. I really must wonder if this is one of those "I heard" or "Somebody told me"questions. Of course in London Manchester or Glasgow this never happens.
Somehow I must believe that you are one of the thousands who have lost their precious roses and did not take the most basic security precautions. Paris will receive around 28 million visitors this year.
Just how many I phones were stolen? I have been to Paris many times and yes on one occasion a little boy of unknown ethnic origin did try to sell me a tiny Eiffel Tower replica and asked double the normal price. That is my only encounter with the Paris criminal element.

The "city of romance" is an artificial tag that has been attached to several cities such as Rome and Venice as well as Paris by skilful foreign touristic agencies capitalising on sentimental films conceived mainly in the USA in the post war era. Nothing will deter them from using all the gushing terminology and platitudes which they need to entice punters whatever city they organise trips to.

As for Romanian gypsies they have become a problem on a European scale including in their own country where they live a lawless existence to the despair of other Romanians. They flock to Paris because it is the world most popular destination, but they are also operating in other large cities from Oslo to Rome or Barcelona. I was approached with the "sign a petition" scam outside churches in Venice, saw gypsy gangs robbing tourists in Milan, scavenging for food in Oslo, scamming tourists with trumped up games in London, and planting roses willy-nilly on tourists in Venice to get them to hand over money.
So any destination can pause a threat to the careless and the naïve tourist, but it is nothing new. Rome, another "capital of romance" was famed for pick pocketing and thieves well before Paris. I'm a seasoned traveller and have been robbed in New York, and my husband had his pocket picked whilst carrying a one year old baby in Belgium. He has managed to have his Blackberry stolen from his dinner suit at an English opera house patronised only the upper crust and where there were no gypsies but only supposedly honest British gentlemen. Our sports car wheels were removed overnight outside a hotel in Germany. As a Parisian I feel that the propaganda about Paris scams is due to well meaning people wanting to warn others, but a lot of it has been blown out of proportion by word of mouth, or as in this case by computer gossip.