Maricarmen Abascal, 87, evicted from her home in Madrid, becomes symbol of the housing crisis in Spain

I ask you all for courage, to fight, to defend what is ours." This is the cry launched by Maricarmen Abascal, an 87-year-old retiree, evicted from her home last week, in a video published on their sides.

In Madrid, the very touristy Puerta del Sol has been occupied since Saturday by around a hundred demonstrators who have set up tents there to denounce the housing crisis hitting Spain. In ten years, the average rental price per square meter in the country has almost doubled, reaching 15.1 euros/m2 in August, according to the real estate portal Idealista. For purchase, it now stands at 2,924 euros, again according to the same source, compared to 2,599 euros in August 2025.

Thousands of people marched in the Spanish capital on Saturday. As they marched through central Madrid, protesters chanted slogans and held banners demanding measures to curb rising housing costs and make evictions more difficult. “You could be the next Maricarmen,” read one of the banners.

“This expulsion is murder”

The octogenarian was evicted by the police on Wednesday September 23 from her Madrid apartment, which she had occupied for seven decades. She had been engaged for years in a legal battle against a real estate agency which had acquired her apartment and increased the monthly rent by 275%, bringing it to 2,650 euros, according to the Madrid tenants' union. The case was brought before the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the agency in December 2023, paving the way for the expulsion, explains the Spanish media Democrata.

Police forcibly dispersed dozens of activists who were camped outside Maricarmen's building to try to prevent the eviction. Rescuers transported the retiree, who uses a wheelchair, to an ambulance on a stretcher. “This expulsion is murder,” some activists shouted, according to El País, while others cried: “No one did anything for her.” These images shocked all of Spain.

The socialist Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, who committed last year to making housing a government priority, first pointed the finger, on Wednesday, at the conservative president of the Madrid region, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, accused by the left for several months of having purchased, with public funds, a luxurious apartment with a terrace in the city center of Madrid for her personal use, which she denies.

Then, during a meeting organized by the Socialist Party on Sunday, Pedro Sanchez assured Maricarmen Abascal that his government was working "hard" on a text to protect tenants, nicknamed the "Maricarmen decree". Presented Tuesday morning, it provides for the automatic renewal of rental contracts and the suspension of evictions until 2030. However, it is not certain that these measures will be adopted by Parliament, where the government does not have a stable majority.

Monday evening, Maricarmen Abascal's lawyer declared that the retiree could finally return to her accommodation, after an agreement reached with the owners of the property. “If the agreement we reached is signed, it will obviously be a better and happier outcome for everyone,” Beatriz Duro told journalists, seeing it as “the result of social mobilization.” This mobilization of Spaniards will have brought the housing crisis back to the forefront, in the run-up to the legislative elections scheduled for 2027.