The march held in Madrid within the framework of the general strike, called to demand effective protection of the right to housing and improvements in wages, has ended with police charges and the arrest of two people accused of assaulting authority and public disorder.
The mobilization, organized under the slogan "Wages. Housing. Prices", got under way at 18.00 hours in Atocha amid heavy rain, led by the main trade union organizations, including the Sindicato de Inquilinas, which has played a prominent role in the call.
The Delegación del Gobierno en Madrid has estimated attendance at 120,000 people, while the Sindicato de Inquilinas has raised that estimate to 750,000, reflecting strong disagreement over the scale of the protest.
Remembering Maricarmen and criticism of rent-seeking
Along the route, attendees have paid tribute to Maricarmen and have chanted slogans against rent-seeking, calling on the political class to take concrete measures to guarantee access to housing. The criticism has been directed especially at the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and the mayor of the capital, José Luis Martínez-Almeida.
Among the chants, familiar slogans in housing demonstrations have been repeated, such as "what’s going on, what’s going on, we don’t have a home", "here are the antifascists", or "long live the struggle of the working class".
Calls for a rent strike have also been issued, with messages like "To the rentiers we want to ask how long you can stand it when we all stop paying you". At the demonstration, placards shaped like houses were seen denouncing the high cost of housing, and others on which it read "Feminist neighborhoods against funds and rentiers", as well as messages in defense of pensions and of public schooling.
Charges in the Gran Vía and Plaza de España area
The march went by without any incidents of significance until shortly before 21.00 hours, when, near Plaza de España and Gran Vía, dozens of people began to confront the officers. Police intervened to try to dissolve the pockets of disturbances and stop the throwing of objects, carrying out a first charge at that point, where police charges had already taken place in the morning.
According to eyewitnesses cited by Europa Press, the agents have used pepper spray against the protesters, an action that these sources have described as "disproportionate". In several streets in the center, people with injuries and cuts have been seen.
The incidents have included the burning of containers and have spread along routes near Plaza de España, such as Callao, Preciados, Pez, and San Bernardo. Attendees at the protest have said that, after a great final round of applause, people began to disperse, and it was then that the first charges took place and the subsequent chases along different streets in the vicinity of Gran Vía and Plaza de España.
Union criticisms of the police action
After the disturbances became known, the spokesperson for the Sindicato de Inquilinas, Alicia del Río, has denounced a "escalation of violence" by the Police throughout the entire day of the general strike and has announced that they will demand accountability for what happened.
The organization has noted, however, that it will wait to have all the data before closing its assessment and specifying the actions it will take. "We are going to wait to have all the figures to give a clear evaluation and demand accountability from all public offices that are necessary," Del Río emphasized.
Meanwhile, the general secretary of UGT, Pepe Álvarez, has criticized that the security forces acted with "an absolutely unacceptable zeal and excess" both in interventions against the pickets in the early hours of the morning and in the charges against the people who were demonstrating in Madrid.