The Tenants' Union estimates 500,000 people participated in the housing mobilization held this Saturday in Madrid. This is currently the estimate from the organizing body and not an official count: the Government Delegation has not yet communicated its own figure of attendees. The protest has traversed much of the city center through four simultaneous marches that have ended converging in Cibeles Square, which has become the central point of a new day of mobilizations for access to housing.
The call has been developed under the slogan "Towards the general strike" and comes after a week marked by the encampment at Puerta del Sol and by the rejection this Friday in Congress of the two royal decrees previously approved by the Government to introduce new measures on rents and evictions. PP, Vox, and Junts voted against the texts, which led to their downfall and gave a new boost to the protests called for this weekend.
Four marches to Cibeles
The Madrid mobilization has been organized differently from previous ones. Instead of establishing a single starting point, the organizers have proposed four columns coming from different areas of the city, all with Cibeles as the destination. The northern column departed from the Emilio Castelar roundabout and traveled along the Paseo de la Castellana; the southern one left from Atocha via the Paseo del Prado; the eastern one began near the Hospital de La Princesa and advanced along Diego de León and the Serrano-Alcalá axis; while the western one departed from Plaza de España and traveled along Gran Vía and Alcalá.
The four marches began around 12:00 hours and were incorporating demonstrators as they advanced towards the center. The organization later placed the joint attendance at 500,000 people, a figure that will need to be compared with the authorities' balance when the Government Delegation publishes its estimate.
From "Not one more Maricarmen" to "Towards the general strike"
The protest represents a new step in the cycle of mobilizations that began after the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, the 87-year-old woman forced to leave the home in the Retiro neighborhood where she had lived for more than seven decades. On September 26, another demonstration took place in Madrid under the slogan "Not one more Maricarmen" and subsequently led to a camp at Puerta del Sol that remains active eight days later.
Now the message has changed. The Tenants' Union places as the next objective a general strike related to the housing crisis. Its spokesperson in Madrid, Valeria Racu, assured this Saturday that this call will come "soon" and explained that there are conversations with the major labor unions. "Whoever governs," she warned, the movement aims to maintain pressure so that housing continues to occupy a central place on the political agenda.
CCOO and UGT had asked the public this Friday to participate in the mobilizations called for the weekend and announced that their governing bodies will analyze the next steps after the fall of the decrees in Congress. Both unions talk about moving towards a strategy of coordination with neighborhood movements, tenants' unions, and other social organizations, although for now there is no announced date for a general strike.
Protests in dozens of cities
Madrid is not the only stage for the mobilizations. This Saturday there are protests called in dozens of Spanish cities, including Barcelona, Málaga, Córdoba, Alicante, Bilbao, A Coruña, Santiago de Compostela, Palma, and Valladolid. RTVE counts 47 calls during the day, while other organizations speak of more than fifty mobilizations across the country.
The protests come immediately after Congress rejected the two housing laws approved by the Council of Ministers. Among the measures that were rendered ineffective were new protections against certain evictions, changes in the regulation of contracts, and measures aimed at containing some rent increases. The vote has intensified a movement that had already begun before the parliamentary debate and is now trying to shift its pressure from the camps and demonstrations to a possible union mobilization of greater scope.
Awaiting the official count
The figure of 500,000 attendees disseminated by the Tenants' Union is, therefore, the only participation balance communicated so far by the organizers. In the absence of the estimate from the Government Delegation, there is still no official figure to compare it with, so the number must be expressly attributed to the organization.
Beyond the battle of figures, the protest confirms the continuity of the mobilizations that began a week ago. After the march for Maricarmen, the camp in Sol, and the fall of the decrees in Congress, the four columns that converged this Saturday in Cibeles now place the general strike as the next objective of the housing movement.