Zartoste Bakhtiari says that he hasn’t slept more than three hours a night since riots broke out in France a week ago.

By day, he is the mayor of Neuilly-sur-Marne, in one of the poorest regions of France, east of Paris. At night, he patrols the streets with staff and councilors until 04:00 or 05:00, acting as an early warning system for police to deal with rioters there. “Within days, we were in hell“, he tells the BBC.

On Tuesday, he will go to the Elysee Palace with more than 200 other mayors to discuss the crisis with the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

His request is for “more toughness” from the state and permission for the city’s local police to use drones to monitor activity in the city. “What is happening now is the result of chronic weakness of policies and decisions that have not been made,” he says.

“It is a problem of power because they, the rioters, are not afraid of justice. They may go to court, but they go home a few hours after the trial simply because we don’t have enough prisons in this area in Paris. We cannot support this kind of weakness from the state.”

Just outside his office at city hall is the charred wall of the town’s local police station.

“They jumped over this wall at 1am with a can of petrol,” Mayor Bakhtiari explains, gesturing to the squad’s fleet of seven charred cars, their ash skeletons lined up under the blackened facade.

Mayor Bakhtiari says the arsonists were caught on video surveillance camera and from the video they appear to be teenagers, maybe 14-16 years old.

Macron meeting with 220 mayors

In the wake of the unrest in France, French President Emmanuel Macron today welcomes the mayors of 220 French cities that have suffered significant damage after a week of violent unrest.

One week after the death of a young man, during a police check last night, limited arrests were made compared to the previous nights, 72 in total, of which 24 in the greater Paris area.

New damage was reported, however, with 24 buildings set on fire or damaged across the country, while 159 vehicles were also set on fire, French authorities said.

Four attacks on police, gendarmerie and municipal police facilities took place yesterday, the interior ministry said, with no police officers injured.

With today’s meeting, Emmanuel Macron wants to start a long-term thorough effort to understand the causes that led to these events, according to the services of the French Presidency.

For his first move since the beginning of the crisis, Emmanuel Macron chose to visit last night together with the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin a police camp in Paris and then the headquarters of the Paris police.