More than 50 protests were called this Saturday in Spain after Congress's rejection of the housing decrees. While the camp continues in Madrid, where between 70,000 and 500,000 people demonstrated in the streets, according to authorities and organizers. The Tenants Union seeks to promote a general strike.

First modification: 10/03/2026 - 15:03 Last modification: 10/04/2026 - 00:59

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With a banner calling for a general strike, a demonstration continues this Saturday in Madrid over the housing crisis in Spain. The camp also continues and more than 50 protests were called in cities across the country.

Called by the Tenants' Union, the demonstrations take place after the rejection by Congress, on October 2, of the decrees with measures to address the housing problem and in the middle of the reflection period opened by the president of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, to decide whether to bring forward the elections scheduled for 2027.

Demonstrations under the motto "Towards the general strike"

After 12 noon, the demonstration started in Madrid with four columns heading towards the Plaza de Cibeles. This march, which demands a 50% reduction in rents, permanent contracts and the expropriation of homes in the hands of investment funds, is led by a banner with the slogan "Towards a general strike."

The march converged on a large square in the center of the city. Some 70,000 people, according to the authorities, and 500,000, according to the tenants' union, marched through the Spanish capital.

With the same purposes, more than 50 demonstrations will be held throughout this Saturday in different cities in Spain.

In statements to the media, the spokesperson for the Tenants' Union, Valeria Racu, highlighted that this mobilization is due to Maricarmen, her courage and her example, which has "ignited the spark", in reference to the elderly Madrid woman who was evicted on September 23 and who, thanks to social pressure, will be able to return home.

"Yesterday we confirmed that we have a Congress hijacked by rentism. A Congress totally separated from the reality of the streets, totally separated from that social majority, from that social consensus that exists among our entire population that rentism is a scourge for our society and that we have to put an end to it," Racu stressed.

Housing activists in Catalonia (northeast) are preparing a demonstration for this Saturday afternoon in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat (Barcelona), which is expected to be the largest in the region, with specific calls to unions, works councils, neighborhood associations and universities.

Demonstrations have also been called in Girona, Badalona and other smaller towns, especially around Barcelona.

This Saturday, the president of the Spanish employers' association CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, expressed his respect for the housing protests, but said that he would act if a general strike was called because, in his opinion, that would be "illegal."

What about the camp?

The camping out for housing in Madrid's Puerta del Sol began on the night of Saturday, September 26, 2026, at the end of the demonstration called after the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, 87 years old.

The groups gathered at the general assembly on Friday stated that they would expand the camp towards Callao if necessary and if people continued to arrive at the square.

In Sol, they said, there was no room for more stores and that week there had already been more than a thousand. At the time, they didn't know if it would be necessary, but they noted that if more people continued to arrive, the camp would move up the street.

Izquierda Revolucionaria said that “we can continue camping and work from the neighborhoods.” At the end of the assembly, protesters who were at the meeting also reproached union activists that “it is not incompatible to do both things.”

The union focuses its efforts on a possible general strike

The organization that led the protest, for its part, indicated that it would focus on preparing a possible general strike.

The Madrid Tenants Union announced on Friday that part of the militancy would leave the camp in Puerta del Sol.

The organization, which promoted the protest after the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, wants to take the mobilization to the neighborhoods and focus its efforts on preparing a possible general strike.

Valeria Racu, one of the union's spokespersons, said on Friday, in a live video on social media, that "whether it continues or not, it is not a decision that we can make. Starting tomorrow our presence will be less, but we are not going to disappear. If the camp is still here, the union will continue."

“A large part of the militancy of the Madrid Tenants Union must return to its usual union capacity in the neighborhoods,” said Alicia del Río, another of the spokespersons, before thousands of people at kilometer zero of the capital, during her speech at the general assembly organized in the camp.

"Today's message is that, in the face of a rentier Congress, politics will now be made by the people. Where there is unrest, we will be building power. We have to stop this country. We are going for everything, they are no longer minimum. Now the objective is to change the paradigm of how housing is understood in this country," claimed Del Río

Racu and Del Río, according to Spain's El País, defend that the horizon is a general strike and that these days they will meet with other unions and organizations: "The camp is no longer about the union. This is much more than the union and there are people who still want to come. We are no longer the nerve center of this. If the camp continues or does not continue, it is not a decision that we can make."

With EFE, Reuters and local media

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