Spain, mass protests against the cost of housing: tens of thousands in the streets

The day after Parliament's no to the Sanchez government's decrees to combat the housing crisis in Spain - which could also lead to new elections - protest demonstrations resumed in the country. What triggered the protests in recent weeks was the case of Maricarmen, the 87-year-old woman evicted (and then returned) from the apartment in which she had lived for 70 years.

Four columns of demonstrators for the right to housing left today in the capital Madrid, converging on the central Plaza Cibeles from the north, south, east and west of the capital, in protest at the rejection in Parliament of two emergency law decrees for measures against the housing crisis.

Behind large banners reading: "General strike now!", and shouting "Speculators out of our neighborhoods" and "This must change, housing now!", thousands of demonstrators joined the marches that started from Atocha, in the south of the city, from Plaza de Espana, from La Princesa hospital, while a march also started from the activists' camp in Puerta del Sol.

And demonstrations, called by tenants' unions in over 50 Spanish cities, are taking place simultaneously from north to south of the country, from Santander in Cantabeia, to Santiago de Compostela, in Galicia, in Palma de Mallorca, in the Balearic Islands. Mass mobilizations are also planned in Barcelona, Toledo, Vigo, Alicante and Malaga, among others.

"What you can breathe in the streets is a new energy. An energy that has demonstrated popular power in 8 days is capable of doing much more than in 8 years of progressive government", declared the spokesperson of the Sindicato de Inquilinas, Valeria Racu. And she repeated the desire of the activists to "carry the fight forward". "We know perfectly well who the culprits are: the real invaders are the investors", she added, referring to the 'vulture' property speculation funds.

"The path is clear and it is towards the general strike", continued Racu, assuring that they are in contact with the majority unions in the country to organize a general abstention from work, for which, however, a date has not yet been indicated.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Madrid: at least 70 thousand according to the prefecture. The Sindicato de Inquilinas, which called today's demonstrations in around fifty Iberian cities, estimates that around half a million people took to the streets in the Spanish capital.

And during the day there were clashes between demonstrators and police in the protests for housing rights underway in Valencia. Officers in riot gear fired rubber bullets to disperse hundreds of activists who had marched to the emblematic Palau de las Artes complex, where a convention of real estate companies was taking place.

A group of around thirty demonstrators managed to enter the complex, overcoming the imposing police cordon protecting the complex, filmed in the images broadcast live by the public broadcaster TVE. To clear them out and remove the demonstrators, the police used tear gas and fired some rubber bullets as a deterrent. At the moment there are no injuries or arrests reported.