From an Anglo-Saxon perspective that's what it looks like, but I think you are missing a cultural difference. In France, the state does not have the legitimacy that it does in the UK and US. In the UK parliament, not the people, is sovereign; this is more or less the practical situation in the US as well, despite lip-service to popular sovereignty.
In France, the people maintain the right to distruptively object to government actions and laws. What seems to us to be a criminal act may have (depending on circumstances) more popular legitimacy than the laws themselves. Or it may not, depending.
In France, the people maintain the right to distruptively object to government actions and laws. What seems to us to be a criminal act may have (depending on circumstances) more popular legitimacy than the laws themselves. Or it may not, depending.