After three months of strikes and street protests against Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform, opposition MPs sought on Monday to prolong the blockages in parliament by introducing 22,000 amendments to the fiercely contested bill.

In a level of filibustering rarely seen in France, Left-wing MPs mainly from the far-Left party, France Unbowed, admit their aim is to gangrene the parliamentary process just as 70 MPs convene in a special commission to pore over the 65 articles of the bill.

"We openly admit we're causing obstruction," said Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of La France Insoumise, or Unbowed France, which has lodged 19,000 of the amendments in an attempt to delay the legislation.

The Macron executive has given the house five weeks to round off the debate over the controversial bill, aimed at merging the country’s 42 separate pension schemes into a points-based “universal” system, and has slammed the filibustering as "rubbishing the role of parliament".

“This is absurd,” said the Marc Fesneau, minister of parliamentary relations.

“I’m not certain that this honours democracy,” said government spokeswoman Sibet Ndiaye.