Protests continue in Spain as citizens rally against housing costs

Protesters camped in Madrid’s central square said on Monday they would keep up pressure on Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to ease the housing crisis, after an 87-year-old woman called for the demonstrations to continue.

Demonstrators have pitched around 100 tents in the capital’s Puerta del Sol square, a day after tens of thousands filled the streets to demand lower housing costs and stronger protections for tenants.

The protests were triggered after police evicted the 87-year-old woman from her longtime Madrid apartment last Wednesday.

“I ask you all to be brave, to fight and to defend what is yours,” the woman told citizens in a video posted on X by the capital’s tenants’ union.

Hospitalized after the eviction, she has become a symbol of the protests against what demonstrators call the stratospheric rise in Spanish home prices.

Sánchez, who faces harsh criticism — including from within his own political camp — over his failure to curb rising prices, is expected to present a new draft on Tuesday.

He has urged political parties to back the draft, which is expected to rein in measures such as automatic lease renewals and further limit evictions.

But Sánchez’s party has no majority in the Spanish parliament, so it is unclear whether the draft will be approved — only months after a similar package failed earlier this year.