Just a few hours after Maricarmen, 87 years old, would leave the home where she had lived for 71 years after the eviction carried out this Wednesday, the protest has changed its location and has moved to cities across Spain. One of them has been Madrid, precisely at number 35 on General Martínez Campos street, in front of the penthouse acquired by the Community of Madrid for its president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, where the protesters have gathered to denounce the eviction.
"Ayuso's penthouse for Maricarmen" has been one of the shouts heard during the Madrid mobilization. The choice of location has not been casual for the Tenants' Union, which had called for a gathering there at 7:00 PM. Its spokesperson had pointed out before the protest to the Ayuso government and the housing policies of the Community as responsible for the situation faced by tenants.
The property has become one of the focal points of criticism from the organization in recent weeks. Planifica Madrid acquired it for 6.3 million euros, and the Tenants' Union had already displayed a banner in front of the building days earlier with the slogan "Penthouse for Ayuso, eviction for Maricarmen".
The protest comes after a morning marked by Maricarmen's eviction, who had to leave her home amid a large police deployment. The woman was taken out of the property on a stretcher around 1:00 PM and was transported by ambulance to Gregorio Marañón Hospital to check her health status. During the previous hours, activists and neighbors had tried to prevent the execution of the eviction.
"Where is the progressive government?"
The protest has not been directed solely against the Madrid government. In the gatherings, the tenants' unions have also focused on the central government, which they demand unblock measures to prevent new evictions and guarantee the continuity of rental contracts.
"Where is the progressive government?", the protesters have raised during the mobilizations, referring to Pedro Sánchez's government. The unions demand that the decree for the extension of rentals be approved next Tuesday, one of the main demands raised during the day.
In Barcelona, furthermore, the organizers have raised the tone of the protest and have warned that, if their demands are not met, they will propose a general strike, as they have conveyed during the concentration.
The Catalan mobilization has thus placed the case of Maricarmen within a broader claim directed at the administrations to adopt measures against evictions and the rental situation.
A mobilization that extends across Spain
"Change starts today" is among the slogans of the call, which the tenants' unions have extended to various Spanish cities.
In Sevilla, the Tenants' Union has urgently called for a concentration at the Setas de la Encarnación. There, the protest is presented under the slogan "The house for those who inhabit it, not for speculators". The union has linked the mobilization with the eviction of Maricarmen and with its rejection of real estate speculation and what it considers complicity of the administrations.
In València, the concentrations have been proposed under the same slogan: "For all the Maricarmen". The organizers have denounced what they describe as "police brutality" during the eviction, in addition to questioning the impediments to journalists to report on what happened.
The organizers have also connected the protest this Wednesday with other recent episodes. In Barcelona, they have recalled the eviction of Silvia and the case of Olga, in l'Hospitalet, who took her life after her eviction.
Mobilizations have also been called in Oviedo, Cádiz, Palma, Málaga, Ávila, Toledo, and Guadalajara, as part of the response deployed by the tenants' unions in different parts of the country. In the Asturian capital, the protest has been called in Plaza de España, in front of the Government Delegation.