Madrid (AFP) - Madrid and other Spanish cities are witnessing mass demonstrations on Saturday against the backdrop of the housing crisis, according to what Agence France-Presse journalists reported, the day after Parliament rejected measures proposed by the government to contain the crisis.
Published on: 03/10/2026 - 14:48
The authorities estimated the number of participants in the protest movement in Madrid at seventy thousand people, while the organizers said that the number was approximately half a million.
These moves, which were called for before Friday's vote, come within the framework of the crisis that began about ten days ago, with the eviction of an elderly woman from her home in the capital, becoming a symbol of the housing crisis that has been hitting Spain for years.
In a main square in Madrid, participants in the demonstrations marched behind a large banner that read: “Towards a general strike.”
"What can be felt in the streets is a new energy, an energy that we have not seen for a long time, an energy that shows that eight days of people's rule can do much more than eight years of progressive rule," Valisia Raco, a spokeswoman for the tenants' union organizing the protest movement, said in a statement, criticizing the government of socialist Pedro Sanchez.
She added, "Here the real politics begins, the politics that has always belonged to the people and that returns permanently to the streets... We want to restore the historical tool that has always been used by people working to change reality: the general strike."
On Friday, Parliament dropped two draft laws submitted by the Sanchez government in an attempt to contain the housing crisis, dealing a setback to the Socialist Prime Minister and opening the door to escalation of the protests.
This came months before the general elections next year, which raised speculation about the possibility of moving forward the date of the elections scheduled to be held no later than the summer of 2027. But Sanchez has so far ruled out holding early elections.
Providing affordable housing represents one of the most prominent social problems in Spain in recent years, but the protests took on a broader dimension after elderly tenant Maricarmen Abascal was forced to leave an apartment in which she had spent about 70 years after a company took over the property and raised the rent by 275 percent.
Activists defending the right to housing took action, setting up protest camps in central Madrid and other cities, and making this 87-year-old woman a symbol of the housing crisis.
Spain, with a population of 50 million, suffers from a gap between demand and new housing. The Central Bank estimates the shortage at about 700,000 units.
© 2026 AFP
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