Examples in history suggests that repression via overwhelming force is highly effective in quelling potential riots and revolts. Even in your recent US history provides clear evidence of ruling through the iron fist over "negotiating" with the ignorant muck. When Matin Luther King was assainated and race riots threated major US cities, the mayor of Detroit pled with the would be rioters resulting in his city burning to the ground, and Detroit becoming the ruin that it is today. The mayor of Chicago declared virtual martial law and informed would be rioters that they would be shot on sight; Chicago is a thriving metropolis today. Any ruler who would stoop to begging his rebellious subjects for peace ought to first slit his wife's throat and smother his children before attempting such suicidal insanity.
Men need to be governed, not coddled. France has in possession the best mercenary army in the world: Legion estrangere. Macron need not even muster native French soldiers to lockdown Paris. As for the French generals and officers, they are loyal to their paymasters in French bureaucracy and would be unwilling to risk their previleged position, in some high risk low reward gamble, by siding with disorganized mob of over-emotional rabble.
It is fortunate that the yellow vest protests will be nothing more than a footnote in obscure French historical trivia. Macron's incompetence may have saved gallons of French blood. Their next master may not be so accomodating, however.
I note the French are the source of particularly poignant quote regarding riots and repression: Let them eat cake.
The Bastille and bastinado do not always suppress dissent. The West is undergoing replacement, and is not simply unaware and complacent about it. Things will continue to develop, and we will see what comes of it. My expectation presently is that Macron has little interest in pressing harder, as long as the Yellow Vests don't.