Thousands demonstrate in Spain against the housing shortage

Madrid. In Spain, thousands of people are taking to the streets because of the housing shortage in the country. As the Spanish state TV broadcaster RTVE reports, there are currently demonstrations in several cities such as Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia for the right to decent housing and better protection for tenants. According to RTVE, protests in more than 50 cities had been announced for this Saturday.

Madrid Tenants Association spokeswoman Valeria Racu said: “The power is back on the streets.” Addressing speculation about early general elections, she added: "This is a warning to everyone. We will not tolerate another four years without addressing the problem in our country. This will continue until everything changes." In her statement, Racu called for a general strike in protest against the housing crisis.

On Friday, the left-wing government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez also failed in Parliament due to resistance from conservative and right-wing populist MPs with two decrees with which it wanted to take action against rising rents and evictions. In the previous days, following the sensational eviction of an 87-year-old in Madrid, there were protests involving tens of thousands of people across Spain for the right to housing.

With the failure of the two rental decrees, Sánchez's government has slipped into a serious crisis. She has hardly been able to get any initiatives through parliament since the conservative Catalan separatist party Junts, with seven MPs, stopped supporting her almost a year ago.

There is now speculation about early elections. The next elections would be normal next summer. The newspaper "El País", citing those close to Sánchez, reported that the politician wanted to gauge the extent of the discontent among the population over the failure of the decrees in the face of resistance from right-wing parties and the nationwide protests this weekend and then decide whether to call new elections.