The eviction of an 87-year-old woman from her home in Madrid, where she had lived in all her life, brought thousands of people into the streets on Saturday, where they marched to demand stronger protections for tenants.
Images of Maricarmen Abascal being carried out of her Madrid flat on a stretcher on Wednesday, after police broke down her door, have brought Spain’s housing crisis back into the spotlight ahead of a general election expected in 2027.
As they marched through central Madrid, protesters chanted slogans and carried banners urging action to rein in rising housing costs and make evictions harder to carry out.
“You could be the next Maricarmen,” read one banner.
In a video message shared online only hours before the protest, Abascal, now a symbol of Spain’s housing crisis, called on Spaniards to join the fight.
“I want what has happened to me to serve so that it does not happen to other people,” she said from the hospital, where she has been treated for exhaustion since her eviction.
“I want it to encourage people to fight and to help change the laws that have allowed me to be evicted,” she added in the video, posted by Spain’s main tenants’ union.
Abascal was compelled to vacate the apartment she had occupied for 70 years after a real estate company bought the property and increased the rent by 275 per cent to 2,650 euros ($3,000), according to the union.
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who promised last year to make housing a government priority, is facing mounting pressure to take action. Protests have taken place regularly throughout Spain since Abascal’s eviction.
His government is expected to approve a set of measures known as the “Maricarmen decree” at its next cabinet meeting, which would include automatic renewal of rental contracts and additional limits on evictions.
However, it remains uncertain whether parliament will approve the package, where Sanchez’s government does not hold a majority.
Although a similar bill was rejected earlier this year, Abascal’s situation has intensified pressure on political parties to respond.
