The president offered an unsparing, if broad, assessment of the protest movement, saying that some “take as a pretext that they are speaking in the name of the people” when “in fact they are merely speaking for a hateful mob that takes after elected officials, the police, journalists, Jews, foreigners, homosexuals.”

“This is quite simply the negation of France,” Mr. Macron said.

He was referring to some extremist rhetoric that has emerged most recently on the fringes of the Yellow Vest movement, which began as a citizen revolt over a rise in gasoline taxes, then spread quickly all over France as it encompassed general anger over economic inequality and a heavy fiscal burden.

In its latest stages, the protests have veered on the fringes into hate-filled rhetoric.

Mr. Macron’s tone on Monday was true to form — he has been accused of being didactic — and it was uncertain if his words would be enough to calm a country that is seeing some of the greatest expressions of popular anger in 50 years.

Mr. Macron said the anger “had come from far back,” suggesting that it had started well before the beginning of his presidency in 2017. Yet while a big tax burden has been a feature of French life for several decades, Mr. Macron himself has become a symbol of economic inequality for many of the protesters.

Early in his presidency, he enacted measures (mostly symbolic) to lighten the tax load on the wealthy and employers, while ratcheting up the burden (again symbolically) on the less well-to-do, including retirees on state pensions.