I am in no position to judge, I have not participated to protests either in France or in the US. So everything I will say is only about perception from media reports or what I saw in my medium/smallish-sized city (Brest)

I feel the level of violence of gilets jaunes has been overreported by international medias, or maybe misattributed. I believe the large majority of protesters have been angry, determined people but overall pacific ones. And the reported violence came from a small minority, who abused the opportunity. And the same thing happened in the US months ago when there were reports of looting and degradation. Maybe I am naive and manipulated by medias, who knows.

But you are probably right, in the sense that gilets jaunes organized blockade of infrastructure, and were generally very active, trying to be heard. Much more than in recent US protests. But I would not call that "violence".