PARIS - A young woman committed suicide by throwing herself from half way up the Eiffel Tower Thursday, crashing onto a restaurant patio on the first floor of the Paris monument, police said.

Police were working to identify the victim, in her 20s, who plunged to her death after managing to slip through a security barrier on the second floor.

Security barriers and netting have cut to fewer than four or five a year the number of suicides at the Eiffel Tower, the world's most visited tourist attraction, drawing some six million people each year.

The emblem of the Paris skyline soars 324 metres (710 feet) above the city.