Many Americans actually died in these events in addition to dangerous fires (with people still inside buildings!) and random acts of violence, so the riot characterization has at least in some cases been fair. It makes sense thousands of people would be arrested when hundreds of crimes have occurred.
The difference in the US is that these events could not be stopped from occurring, and people were not immediately arrested and water cannoned and so forth by police. It was only after the event grew and escalated and changed in nature.
That is where France differs — a protest can, from the beginning, be declared unable to occur, and police respond to it accordingly.
This is not at all to say that these events were all wrong or created with ill intent, but that there is a clear advantage and disadvantage to the right to freedom of assembly in the US.