Macron faces a crucial week in his attempt to change France from the roots

PARIS - A favorite phrase of

, the French president, is that in life "you have to take risks."

He did, and he rose from nowhere to lead France at 39.

Now, six years later, he has decided to risk his political future by reshaping France right at the point where it is most resistant to change.

The 1.28 million protesters on the streets of France last week - 3.5 million according to the unions - had an unequivocal message for Mr Macron: "Work less to live more", as one slogan ran.

Photo Benoit Tessier/Reuters

Macron's battle with the French street over his plan to raise the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 is expected to culminate this week in a decisive vote in both houses of Parliament on Thursday.

Before then, if the past few weeks are any guide, the president can expect more than a million French citizens to join in protests across the country, hoping to roll back change.

In Paris, they will demonstrate in the streets

not collected due to strikes.

In his bid to overhaul France's pension system, Macron has come up against

to a world of unbridled capitalism, the nation's deep attachment to social solidarity and the pervasive view that a long and painful sentence of work is only offset by the liberating rewards of a pensioner's life.

It is a

"Every country has a soul, and the soul of France is equality," said

, Macron's predecessor as president.

The benefit remains suspect to many French people, who see it as a subterfuge of the rich.

The 1.28 million protesters on the streets of France last week - 3.5 million, according to the unions - had an unequivocal message for Macron:

"Work less to live more", as one slogan went.

Macron, 45, appears impassive, resolute in his conviction that change is essential to France's economic health because today's workers pay the pensions of a growing number of retirees who are living longer.

If France wants to invest in the transition to a green economy and in wartime defense in Europe, it cannot, in Macron's view, run up deficits by financing a retirement age that reflects the lower life expectancy of a bygone era.

"It's simple," Macron said last year.

"If we don't solve the problem of our retirees, we won't be able to invest in everything else.

It is nothing less than a choice of the society we want."

It may be logical, but the reserve of sympathy that Macron could once depend on has evaporated.

The turning point of his second term, still less than a year old and accompanied until now by a feeling of drift, seems imminent.

He won re-election last year more as a bulwark against

, the far-right candidate, than anything else.

Europe's wunderkind is hurt.

To some extent, it is

However, he insists, with the quixotic style that he has often displayed, on the most difficult changes at a time when 40% of French families say they have difficulties making ends meet.

"It's a question of DNA," says Clément Beaune, a government minister who knows Macron well.

As a former economy minister, he wants a strong and growing France, in the center of Europe."

When asked about the most important legacy of his first term, he always says that drastically reducing unemployment."

The unemployment rate has fallen to just over 7%, low for France, from 9.5% when Macron took office in 2017, a reflection of his sweeping changes to free up the labor market, which has helped attract a

However, the enlargement of the workforce does not quicken the beating of French hearts.

Yes, the six days of strikes and demonstrations of the last two months do.

The protests have been accompanied by an outpouring of sympathy.

Polls suggest that at least two-thirds of the French

the retirement age to be raised.

Solidarity funds support strikers who lose their wages.

Unions, from the far left to the center, have acted in unison in unusual ways.

They have attacked Macron's relative silence as "a serious democratic problem that inevitably leads to a situation that could become explosive", as they put it in a letter to Macron last week.

The degree of explosiveness will be revealed in the coming days.

Macron's centrist political party

- formerly known as La République en Marche - supported by center-right Republicans should prevail, but support appears to be faltering, and the outcome is unclear.

Renaissance has 260 seats and Los Republicanos 61, so 289 votes are needed for a majority.

"It is not certain that the reform will be approved," says Alain Duhamel, an author and political commentator.

A month ago, I would have said 80% approval;

now she would say 60%."

Macron has made a risky bet.

Its logic is self-evident, but

."

For Macron, inclined to radical ideas, the urgency seems to reside precisely in logic.

France is an extreme case.

The retirement age in Europe has generally been raised above 65 years.

In

, it is 65 years and 7 months.

In

, 67 years old.

In the

it will reach 67 next year.

And in

, in 2027.

But because France sees itself as a separate model, it tends not to be impressed by these comparisons.

For Macron, France must compete;

cannot, in his opinion, be weighed down by obsolete regulations.

"His main value, or conviction, is work," Duhamel said.

"Work more to grow more".

But Macron's message, or narrative, on pension reform has been difficult for many French people to follow.

At different times, it has been about justice, about parlous public finances, even about fulfilling a left-wing program.

"The pension reform is a reform of the left," Olivier Dussopt, French Minister of Labour, Employment and Economic Inclusion, told Le Parisien newspaper.

"It could have been driven by a

."

This happened in Germany two decades ago, under the Social Democratic Chancellor

.

It is not happening in France.

Macron emerged from the Socialist Party just to tear it apart.

He has proven to have economic ideas more associated in France with the right, the source of some of the fury that is often directed against him.

What exactly "macronism" is, however, aside from the right to change your mind and a move to occupy the entire middle ground of politics, remains a mystery.

But both in pension reform and in his commitment to the European Union, he has been unwavering.

In the absence of parliamentary approval, the government could resort to

of the French Constitution, which has been used to pass laws without a vote.

But in an issue of this magnitude and contentiousness, this would almost certainly smack of contempt for the democratic process and could cement charges against Macron of distant, top-down rule.

"Today, what is happening is massive," Marylise Léon, deputy leader of the French Democratic Confederation of Labour, France's largest and most moderate union, told Le Monde newspaper.

"Mr Macron cannot behave as if the movement did not exist. That would be crazy."

Macron has declined to meet with union leaders, although he has said that the government is open to dialogue.

He seems to be adopting a position that is not uncommon among the presidents of the V Republic:

set the broad lines of policy and let Élisabeth Borne, the Prime Minister, lead the hard work of passing legislation.

If anything, this policy has left the President more isolated.

His inner circle is narrow, dominated by his wife,

, who is intensely protective of him, and by

, the Élysée secretary general and staunch supporter of reform, who has been at the president's side since Macron became minister of Economy in 2014.

Inevitably, with Macron limited to two terms, his legacy has begun to matter.

His commitment to a strong Europe of greater "strategic autonomy" remains essential, and he clearly believes that only a modernized France with a balanced budget capable of investing deeply in education, technological innovation, industrial independence, renewable energy, the armed forces and nuclear energy can lead that momentum.

In this sense, the pension change is part of

Macron's broader

If he succeeds in getting the reform passed, Macron will no doubt follow up with compensatory social measures, including attempts to improve working conditions and expand on-the-job training.

Beaune, the deputy minister for Transport, described the central idea as

".

It is unclear whether this will be enough, should the legislation be passed, to close the gap that has opened up in France over pension reform.

Much will depend on it, because a France at war with itself is likely to benefit political extremes left and right.

"Macron's obsession is that Le Pen should not succeed him," says Beaune.

"Because if she does, that's what people will remember."

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