Tens of Thousands March in Spain After Housing Measures Fall
Tens of thousands marched in some fifty Spanish cities on Saturday, a day after the opposition struck down two government housing decrees. Authorities put the Madrid crowd at 70,000; the Tenants’ Union claimed 500,000. In Valencia police fired rubber bullets and teargas to break up the protest, and about thirty people got inside the City of Arts and Sciences before being removed. Demonstrators waved posters calling for a general strike.
The decrees were written in answer to a single eviction. Maricarmen Abascal, 87, was put out of her Madrid flat in September after a sharp rent rise she could not meet; her landlord later negotiated her return on a low rent, and the protests carried on without her. The first decree would have suspended evictions of vulnerable tenants until 2030, extended leases expiring before 2028, raised taxes on tourist apartments and restricted residential buying by investment funds. It fell 178 to 172. The second, automatic renewal of rental contracts, fell 184 to 166, after the centre-right Catalan party JxCat condemned both on the eve of the vote and sided with the People’s Party and Vox. The underlying numbers explain the anger better than the politics: the Bank of Spain puts the country 700,000 homes short, prices are up 12.2% on the year, and rents rose 8.5% in 2025. Marcos Sainz, a 26-year-old librarian, said a one-bedroom flat in Madrid now costs around €1,000 a month, about half the median salary in the capital. Valeria Racu of the Tenants’ Union said eight days of people power had achieved more than eight years of progressive government. Watch for a snap election: Pedro Sánchez was reported on Friday to be weighing a November poll, and to be waiting to see how large Saturday’s crowds were before deciding.