PARIS — The French police arrested a prominent leader of the Yellow Vest movement for a second time, and though he was released on Thursday, the arrest was a clear sign that the government is following through on a pledge to crack down on the protests that have shaken France for much of the past six weeks.

Eric Drouet, a 33-year-old truck driver from the Paris exurbs who was one of the original organizers of the movement, was arrested Wednesday night in Paris for what the authorities said was “organizing an undeclared demonstration.”

Mr. Drouet had declared on the internet, “we’ve got to shock public opinion,” before placing candles to the movement’s wounded in the Place de la Concorde on Wednesday. Online he had also called for “action” on the Champs-Élysées, where several dozen Yellow Vests were waiting for him that evening outside a McDonald’s restaurant.

Instead, he was hustled into a police van by heavily armored riot police. French law requires the organizers of street demonstrations to inform the local authorities about their plans, and violations can bring six months in jail and a fine of 7,500 euros, about $8,500.

The arrest of Mr. Drouet, who had previously been detained and charged for carrying a wooden club at a demonstration on Dec. 22, signaled the new, harsher line taken by a government that has been knocked off balance by several weekends of often violent street demonstrations.

The crackdown has been evident not just in tough police tactics, including the abundant use of tear gas and hundreds of pre-emptive arrests, but in the tone of President Emmanuel Macron’s most recent national address, on New Year’s Eve.

Mr. Macron was sharply critical Monday of what he called the “hateful mob” aspect of the Yellow Vest movement, issuing a stern summons to respect “republican order,” an idea that was present in his government’s defense Thursday of Mr. Drouet’s arrest.

“He wasn’t respectful of the rule of law,” said the economy minister, Bruno Le Maire.

Yet the new policy, and especially the new arrest of Mr. Drouet, risks backfiring in the context of a popular revolt over economic woes and the answers offered by a government that is widely seen as distant and insensitive. Although the movement is clearly slowing down, the people who took to the streets remain mostly dissatisfied with Mr. Macron’s attempts to placate them.

Yellow Vest members interviewed on French television Thursday were sharply critical of the government, as were members of the political opposition. The far right and the far left in France have been engaged in a quiet war to win over the Yellow Vests, and the leaders of both denounced the arrest of Mr. Drouet.

The far left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon called it an “abuse of power” and said that politically driven police were “targeting and harassing the leaders of the Yellow Vests.” On the far right, Marine Le Pen said on Twitter that there was “systematic violation of the political rights” of Mr. Macron’s opponents.

In a movement often described as amorphous, Mr. Drouet has stood out, frequently appearing on television and shocking French public opinion by declaring his readiness to “go inside” the Elysée, were he to reach the presidential palace in a demonstration.

He created the original Facebook page calling for a national demonstration against a gas tax increase in November, and his calls to protest and his analyses of the movement — often live-streamed on Facebook from the cab of his truck — are popular among many Yellow Vests.

Earlier this week Mr. Mélenchon wrote of his “fascination” with Mr. Drouet on his blog, comparing him to a figure of the French Revolution, Jean-Baptiste Drouet, who stopped Louis XVI from fleeing France at the village of Varenne in June 1791.

Khéops Lara, Mr. Drouet’s lawyer, said in a statement published on social media on Thursday that his client had been “arbitrarily arrested” for a gathering that did not qualify as a the kind of demonstration that requires prior authorization.

After he lit candles on the Place de la Concorde in memory of the movement’s wounded, he “wanted to gather with some close relations and friends in a private location, most notably a restaurant, to talk and exchange,” Mr. Khéops said, “without violence, without hatred.”

Some French media outlets raised the possibility that Mr. Drouet had laid a trap for the authorities by taunting them with the intention of provoking his arrest.

“Imagine, I am checked by police, they take me in,” he said during a live stream on Facebook last month. “It will backfire on them. If I have to spend 4 hours in custody to spoil their image, I’ll go.”

Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting.

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