Spain: tens of thousands of demonstrators for the right to housing

Tens of thousands of demonstrators began marching on Saturday for the right to housing in Madrid and other Spanish cities, the day after MPs rejected a series of measures presented by the government, AFP journalists noted. These parades, which were planned before Friday's vote, are part of the crisis that began around ten days ago with the eviction of an octogenarian from her Madrid home, who has become the symbol of the housing crisis which has been hitting Spain for several years.

In Madrid, where a camp has brought together around a hundred activists for a week in an ultra-touristy square, several processions, marching behind a large banner “Towards the general strike”, must converge on another large square in the city center. “What is being breathed in the streets is a new energy, an energy that we have not seen for a long time, an energy which demonstrates that eight days of popular power are capable of doing much more than eight years of progressive government,” declared, in a dig at the government of Pedro Sanchez, Valeria Racu, one of the spokespersons for the tenants' union at the origin of the movement, in a statement sent to the press.

“It is now that real politics begins, the politics that has always belonged to the people and which is returning once and for all to the streets,” she added. “And to achieve this, to achieve this from the base, to achieve from the base to put an end to the housing business, we want to recover this historic tool that people who work to transform reality have always used: the general strike.”

The rejection of the texts submitted by the government on Friday rekindled questions about the end of the legislature, scheduled for 2027. According to the Spanish press, the Prime Minister gave himself a few days to assess the situation and call, or not, possible early elections. In the hemicycle, Pedro Sánchez sought until the end on Friday to obtain a majority, without success: the Popular Party (right), Vox (far right) and Junts (Catalan independence) voted against the two government texts.

The current crisis was triggered by last week's eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, an 87-year-old from Madrid, driven out of the apartment she had lived in for seven decades after the real estate company that bought it wanted to increase her rent by 275%. As in many European capitals, the lack of affordable housing is one of the main social problems in Spain, where tourism platforms like Airbnb and investment funds are accused of driving up prices by buying up real estate and reducing supply for residents. According to the Bank of Spain, the country, where some 50 million inhabitants live, has a deficit of 700,000 housing units.