“What I want the French to understand — and especially those who are saying, more or less, ‘We’re hearing the President, the government, talk about the end of the world, but we, we are talking about the end of the month’ — I want them to understand, we’re going to deal with both,” Mr. Macron said in his speech to government officials in Paris.

Yet despite his insistence he understood the people’s pain, the president offered no relief — particularly from an especially hated gasoline tax increase — and the speech struck many as out of sync with the political moment.

As he spoke, French television showed images of the citizen protesters who filled the streets of Paris last weekend. That France, the world’s most nuclear-dependent country, may reduce its use by 50 percent, was a matter of relative indifference to them, they said scornfully in interview after interview.

From the moment he took office, the problem for Mr. Macron has been that the sweep of his vision was always greater than the actual depth of his support.

Untested as a politician, the former investment banker was elected virtually by default in 2017, running an insurgent campaign after he had bolted from of the failing Socialist party, where he never quite fit in. The center-right politician who had been the front-runner, François Fillon, collapsed under the weight of a scandal. Many French voters said they could not vote for the far-right alternative, Marine Le Pen.

The French took a chance on a fresh face and voted for change, but perhaps got more than they had bargained for. It is a deal now instilling a certain buyer’s remorse among voters and coming back to haunt their audacious yet politically naïve leader, who has been dropping steadily in polls.