In the Spanish city of Barcelona, thousands of people took part in a protest on 5 October sparked by the housing crisis. The authorities put the number of participants at 20,000, while organisers said there were around 120,000, dpa international reports.
The protest was largely peaceful, but there were still isolated disturbances. Some participants set fire to rubbish bins and threw bottles and bar stools at the police.
According to official figures, law enforcement officers detained several people.
Protesters are demanding that the country’s housing policy be fixed. “It makes no sense: people without homes and homes without people,” reads the protesters’ slogan.
How did the protests begin?
The rallies erupted after an 87-year-old woman was evicted from the rented home in Madrid where she had lived for more than 70 years. Maricarmen Abascal was evicted on 23 September following a court ruling. Maricarmen’s father signed the lease in 1956. Later, the tenancy passed to her mother and, after her mother’s death, to Maricarmen. For years she paid the rent reliably, but the current owner, the investment company Urbagestión, sought to terminate the contract after raising the price from €500 to €2,650. The company later reduced the rent to €1,650, but Maricarmen still could not afford it on a monthly pension of €1,350. Maricarmen won the case in court, but an appeal judge overturned that decision, and the Supreme Court ultimately sided with the owners, the newspaper El Pais wrote.
Speaking to journalists, Spaniards stressed that buying property in the country is difficult because of high prices, and that rent sometimes takes up most of their income.
The government submitted two proposals to parliament aimed at improving the housing situation, but lawmakers rejected them. In response, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who has led the government since 2018, called an early election for November.