Emmanuel Macron has launched an order in which the future of France and his own political survival are at stake. While in Spain the Government has presented a pension reform that does not solve its sustainability problems and burdens its payment on the backs of young people, the French president has bet the capital of his second term on a project that he considers so crucial as to impose it by decree in front of a burned street and a Parliament facing him. Now you must r

Resist the pressure to corner him in two ways:

politics, through motions of censure in the National Assembly, and trade unions, in the form of demonstrations

that will be added to those that have paralyzed the country for two months (and that have gained unusual violence since the outbreak of the

Yellow vests

in 2018, with 300 arrested in Paris alone).

"You cannot play with the future, we face too great financial risks," Macron warned before invoking Article 49.3, an extraordinary constitutional power that allows him to pass laws bypassing the Legislative. And he's right:

It is estimated that by 2070 there will be only 1.2 workers for every French pensioner

. The ratio proves the unsustainability of a system weighed down by a deficit that the president wants to end by 2030. To this end, Macron, who tried unsuccessfully to gather parliamentary support to underpin the reform,

Calls for the need to lighten the elephantine French welfare state in full aging population

and at a time when the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have dried up the public coffers, putting the general interest before short-term interests. The year also starts at half gas in France,

whose economy will contract by 0.1% in the first quarter.

The importance that the president -who since his election has made a banner of reformism to transform the

Hexagon

In a more competitive economy, he attributes to his project to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 years is a risk play:

if any of the motions of censure succeed, it will have to dissolve Parliament

and call elections that would reinforce the polarization of the Legislative, today dominated by the extremes of the extreme right of Marine le Pen – which tries to capitalize on the crisis in the face of the presidential elections of 2027 – and the radical left of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

The key to unlocking the impasse is again in the hands of the center-right of The Republicans

, who refuse to support motions of censure so as not to add chaos to the chaos.

The unpopularity of an otherwise much-needed reform

Deepens the gap between citizens and the president

, accused of arrogance and of governing far from the consensus he promised in 2017. But Macron has to stand firm to implement a change that will ease the mortgage on future generations.