Macron is conflating the tax protestors and the hoodlums on purpose.
As protests before the revolution developed, President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, released radical Muslims from prison to join the protesters so the protests would take on a radical tinge and he’d get sympathy from the Western powers. That helped turn simple protests into a true revolution. And, the violence and his response failed to garner any sympathy from anyone. So, yes, conflating thugs with protests has a history of failure. Also, using armored cars against your own citizens is unlikely to help out France in the long run. It might save some windows today. But I’ll bet tourism drops dramatically in the coming year.
Soon they will be conflating the protesters with Neo Nazis and racists, or some other favorite boogiemen of the left.