“I haven’t managed to defend my house, but I have tried so that others can learn how to defend theirs.” These were the words of an 87-year-old Madrid woman, Maricarmen, who posted a video from her hospital bed after Spanish authorities evicted her from the apartment she had lived in for the past 71 years. In the video, she promoted an upcoming protest at Madrid’s Plaza del Sol “so that we can eliminate this problem once and for all”.
Her eviction sparked a fire across the Spanish state. Within days, protesters had set up an encampment in the Plaza del Sol, famously the site of mass anti-austerity protests in 2011. They quickly spread to dozens of other cities, along with mass protests. A few days later came the first victory of the movement, when the vulture fund that had bought Maricarmen’s apartment building agreed to allow her to return with a new, eight-year contract and her rent capped at 30 percent of her pension.
But this victory only fuelled the protests. On Saturday 3 October, nationally coordinated rallies saw around half a million people protest across the country. Three days later, the country’s two major union confederations called a general strike.
Few recent examples illustrate the power of protest as clearly as the last two weeks in the Spanish state. When the authorities forced their way into Maricarmen’s apartment, she was meant to be just another of the nearly 70 people who are evicted from their homes every day across the country. But the footage of her being removed on a stretcher into an ambulance tapped into a rage that millions of people feel living at the whim of the housing market.
In Spain, it is particularly sharp. Over the last decade, rental prices have risen by more than 80 percent, according to the National Institute of Statistics. And the market is becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small minority. From 2008 to 2025, the share of single property owners fell by 4 percent, while the share of people with at least ten properties rose by 35 percent, according to a recent government report.
These statistics prove the main point of the Tenants’ Union, the group leading the protests: the main problem is that under capitalism, housing is a commodity for investors to make a profit from and not a basic good provided to all people. They’ve combined this general perspective with a series of concrete demands, including automatic renewal of rental contracts, a 50 percent rent reduction, and the expropriation of empty properties.
Importantly, the union’s approach has been to spread the protests, while also raising new, more radical slogans as the movement developed. In the first few days, the movement played out under the generally defensive slogan “Not one more Maricarmen”. But as the movement exploded, the slogan shifted to “towards a general strike,” directly calling on the two major union confederations to call one.
Since Maricarmen’s eviction, the government of Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist Party (PSOE) and its junior partner Sumar, heavily influenced by the Communist Party, has scrambled to respond. It put forward two bills in parliament, including measures such as a pause on evictions until 2030 and indefinite rental contract extensions, with twelve months’ compensation for tenants if landlords break the agreement. However, the government is a minority in parliament and, among other parties, it relies on the centre-right Catalan independence party, Junts, to pass any laws. Junts joined the right to defeat the two bills.
Even though the government put forward the bills knowing they would be defeated, the fact that they included reforms like a pause on evictions until 2030 illustrates the power of the movement. Similarly, the movement’s rejection of the bills as inadequate testifies to mass popular support for genuine solutions to the housing crisis and a radical approach to achieving them. A recent poll published in elDiario.es showed 73 percent support for a general strike, 58 percent support for the main encampment in Madrid, and that 40 percent of people would be prepared to engage in a rent strike.
With the bills defeated, however, Sanchez is dissolving parliament and calling snap elections for 29 November. It’s a shrewd political move. His message will be simple: the right-wing parties used their majority to block housing reform, so a majority Socialist Party government is necessary to get real action.
But Sanchez’s record shows how fickle this message is. He is a pro-capitalist, centre-left leader who has capitulated to the right on nearly every issue. On a key political issue in recent years, immigration, he has supported the hardline Fortress Europe approach, including deals with the Moroccan government to stop refugees from entering Spain. And although he has made some progressive symbolic gestures, like recognising Palestinian statehood and using tough language against US President Donald Trump, military spending has increased on his watch. Finally, over his eight years in government, he has done nothing to address the housing crisis, yet now seeks to campaign on the issue.
The Tenants’ Union has not refrained from attacking the Socialist Party and its junior partner, the Sumar coalition, in which the Communist Party is a major force. One of their main lines has been: “Eight days of people’s power has done more than eight years of progressive government”. Similarly, the union has publicly accused Sumar of cynically attempting to channel the protests into their own re-election campaign.
The movement therefore faces a major test in the coming election period. Several encampments made important statements, saying they would not wind them up just because of the election. A spokeswoman for the Tenants’ Union told the media, “Our struggle will not wait for some electoral calendar”. The next challenge is to make the general strike as big as possible and not let the election suck the air out of the movement.
Union officials are undoubtedly trying to subordinate the general strike to the government’s re-election campaign and have yet to announce a date. But the declaration of a general strike is a huge victory for the movement. It has lifted people’s expectations about what’s possible and how to achieve it. And the fact that it took barely two weeks from Maricarmen’s eviction to achieve it shows the potential for mass movements to grow.
The general strike is the most powerful tool the working class has. Millions of ordinary people will collectively withdraw their labour and impose their class interests on the bosses and government. By doing so, workers in the Spanish state are teaching us all how to deal effectively with the housing crisis.
