The Puerta del Sol has become this Sunday the meeting point of two of the main mobilizations of the weekend in Madrid. Shortly after noon, the demonstration in defense of public education arrived at the square and encountered the camp set up since the night before to demand urgent measures on housing after the eviction of Maricarmen. In front of the Real Casa de Correos, headquarters of the Presidency of the Community of Madrid, banners of "nobody without a roof" coexisted for a few minutes with others denouncing the lack of resources in schools, among them one particularly graphic: "321 children and only one counselor".
The confluence was not initially part of a joint call. The educational march had been called for this Sunday at 12:00 hours from Atocha to Sol, while the camp was born spontaneously after the housing protest on Saturday. However, the change of scenario during the night caused both movements to end up coinciding physically in front of the regional government.
Whistles, batucadas, keys held high and two protests in the same square
The arrival of the educational community changed the landscape of the camp for a few minutes. To the tents, information points, and banners about rents were added green t-shirts, batucadas, whistles, and signs from schools and institutes. The keys that during the demonstration for Maricarmen symbolized the difficulty of accessing and staying in a home were also raised again.
The message that unites both protests has been summarized in one of the slogans heard in Sol: "Without education and housing there is no future". Although the demands and the organizers are different, both movements call for greater intervention from the administrations and have chosen the headquarters of the Executive of Isabel Díaz Ayuso as one of their main pressure scenarios. Before the arrival of the educational march, the square already hosted activities from neighborhood and environmental groups alongside the tents of the housing protest.
Public education is already looking to the strike on October 14
The educational demonstration has departed from the vicinity of Atocha and has traveled along the Paseo del Prado, Neptuno, Cibeles, and Alcalá before reaching Sol. The Student Union promoted the call under the slogan "Teachers and students united to defeat Ayuso," within a much broader calendar of mobilizations that has as its next key date October 14, when an indefinite strike in Madrid's public education is called.
The Unit Strike Committee brings together organizations such as CCOO, UGT, CGT, CNT, STEM, Solidaridad Obrera, Menos Lectivas, Queremos FP, Educación Especial Digna, Marea Verde, and the Student Union, in addition to groups of families and workers from early childhood schools. Their demands include reducing teaching hours, lowering ratios, strengthening guidance teams, improving salaries, and decreasing bureaucratic burdens. They also demand improvements in infrastructure and greater investment in public Vocational Training.
Among their specific objectives is to reach a maximum of 17 weekly teaching periods in Secondary and Vocational Training and 22 in Primary, as well as reducing ratios to 13 students per classroom in Early Childhood, 15 in Primary, 20 in Secondary, and 23 in Baccalaureate. In guidance, the organizations propose a reference of one counselor for every 250 students, a demand that explains posters like the one reading "321 children and only one counselor" displayed this Sunday.
The camp for Maricarmen continues in front of the Community
The educational demonstration has reached a square that had been mobilized for hours. About 500 people spent the night in Sol, according to the Government Delegation, spread across around a hundred tents after the march on Saturday against evictions. That protest gathered about 25,000 people according to the Delegation and ended up leading to a camp whose goal is to remain, at a minimum, until the Council of Ministers on Tuesday.
The Tenants' Union demands that the Executive approve that day the so-called "Maricarmen decree", a proposal that the group wants to use as a starting point to strengthen tenant protection. Among their main demands are indefinite rental contracts and new measures against evictions. The organization explained this Sunday that it intends to maintain the protest until knowing the Government's response and is considering extending the camps to other cities.
From one protest to another without leaving Sol
The coincidence has added a new dimension to the protest set up at kilometer zero. What began on Saturday as a march linked to the eviction of a woman of 87 years has coexisted this Sunday with teachers, students, and families preparing for an indefinite strike over the situation of public schools. There is currently no common platform between both movements, but there is a willingness expressed by some participants to connect demands that particularly affect public services and the cost of living.
Thus, Sol has gone in less than 24 hours from being the starting point of a protest for housing to also becoming the goal of a march for public education. In front of the headquarters of the Community of Madrid, the tents remain set up while the square mixes slogans against evictions with demands for more teachers, counselors, and resources. Two mobilizations called separately that this Sunday have ended up occupying the same space and raising, each with its own demands, the pressure on the administrations.