PARIS — The storybook rise of Jean-Luc Martinez begins where he grew up, in a Paris suburb dominated by blocky public housing. It ends deep within the opulent palace of the Louvre museum, where he is plotting what he calls a “petite révolution.”

Mr. Martinez, 50, son of a postman and the Louvre’s president since April 2013, is moving quickly to make a democratic mark on the royal stronghold that has the most visitors of any museum in the world, 70 percent of them foreign tourists.

A two-year, 53.5 million euro makeover, or nearly $67 million, is underway in the vast reception area below I. M. Pei’s glass pyramid, where long lines of waiting visitors stream into a chaotic, open space that Mr. Martinez likens to a noisy airport and that leaves many people disoriented and lost.

He is also revamping the museum’s basic storytelling tools: almost 40,000 banners, wall text, signs and symbols that now explain its treasures in French. The plan is to make them more readable and concise, in English and Spanish for the vast majority of visitors searching for cloakrooms or the Mona Lisa in the sprawl of a museum that dates to 1190, when it was a fortress for King Philippe II.