BOURGES, France — In a world seething with anger over the widening gap between the rich and everyone else, France stands out as a country elaborately engineered to protect social peace.

It has less economic inequality than the United States, Canada and Britain, according to the World Bank. Its people enjoy comprehensive health care under a national insurance program. Only Denmark, Belgium and Sweden spend a larger percentage of their economies on social welfare programs for working-age citizens, according to an analysis by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Even so, France is consumed by a ferocious and sustained outpouring of social unrest. The tumultuous, intermittently violent protests of the so-called Yellow Vest movement have shaken the country since they began in November, intensifying in recent weeks.

President Emmanuel Macron had been preparing to address the nation last Monday to detail new measures in response to the demonstrations. But as the Notre-Dame cathedral went up in flames that evening, Mr. Macron scrapped his address, and used the devastation of a beloved and iconic monument to call for national unity.