“Act VI” of the mobilization against the high cost of living should take an international turn of rare magnitude. “Coordinated demonstrations” will be held at the end of November in seven European countries, marking a “crucial moment” of purchasing power crisis in Europe, unions and housing rights associations have announced. After rallies in several European countries, representatives of Belgian, British, Spanish, French, Greek, Italian and Portuguese organizations, meeting in Paris on Tuesday, November 3, said they hoped to bring together “millions” of people in the streets on November 20, 21 and 22.
“We have decided to coordinate to move forward together,” declared Carme Arcarazo, spokesperson for the Confederation of Spanish Tenants Unions, at the origin of this meeting, during a press briefing. Their main demands concern a “guarantee of the right to housing” and “control of housing, food and energy prices”. They also include more general social and political demands such as increased wages and pensions. The movement also calls for increased taxation of the richest and opposes austerity and rearmament policies.
It is about “guaranteeing public services, notably education, health and public housing”, the “right to work” without “excluding migrants”, promoting “taxation of the rich” and demanding “the end of rearmament policies” and the development of “fossil fuels”, listed Carme Arcarazo, sitting behind a table decorated with strike posters and past or future demonstrations from the different organizations.
“By millions, we will take the streets and show that the people must lead and not the billionaires,” launched Benjamin Ball, member of the coordination of the yellow vests, also present at the meeting. The activist explains to Le Figaro that he hopes that French coordination will “expand” and that each country will “take over”. Because the objective is to prevent governments from “extinguishing the uprising”. In addition to the yellow vests, the CGT and Solidaires unions are participating in the call, as is the Droit au logement (DAL) association.
A movement from Spain
At the end of their meeting in the modest premises of the DAL in Paris, the European organizations denounce a “frantic rise in the cost of living” and a lack of measures taken on the part of governments. In Spain, the expulsion in September of Maricarmen Abascal, an 87-year-old retiree from Madrid who died a few days later, sparked a major wave of demonstrations and put the housing crisis at the center of public debate. To the point of pushing socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to call early legislative elections on November 29. The country's main unions have called a general strike on November 11 to advance their demands on housing and wages before the legislative elections.
Echoing the Spanish protests, camps sprang up in October in the Portuguese cities of Lisbon and Porto. In France, it was high school students who launched the mobilization to demand more resources in education and denounce the Parcoursup guidance system, before demonstrations against the high cost of living also bringing together unions and yellow vests. November 20 will also see a “youth strike” in twenty countries, coordinated by a Portuguese association of students against fossil fuels.
“Hope is in the struggle of people”
The movement of French high school students resonated in several other European countries: in Greece for example, more than 10,000 people demonstrated in several cities, some displaying banners in Greek and French proclaiming “Hope is in the struggle of the people”.
On Saturday, tens of thousands of young Germans also took to the streets. The day before, demonstrations also brought together hundreds of thousands of Italians. On the other side of the Alps, the movement brings together students, port workers, truck drivers, farmers and “the government does not give an answer to anyone” deplored Tuesday Chiara Capretti of the Italian union USB, at the initiative of a general strike on October 30.
Housing is one of the demands of demonstrators from different countries, as it is central to the cost of living problems. In the European Union, house prices jumped by more than 60% between 2010 and 2025 and rent prices by around 29%. In 2024, more than 16.5 million European households spent more than 40% of their income on their housing (threshold called excessive effort rate), or 8.2% of EU households.
