Tens of thousands of people demonstrated across Spain on Saturday, demanding action on housing costs and stronger protection for tenants after Congress rejected two government decrees intended to address the crisis.
Tenants’ organisations used the nationwide mobilisation to begin building support for a general strike, with more than 50 marches called under the shared slogan ‘Towards a general strike’. The protests brought large crowds into central Madrid, while clashes in Valencia left at least five people detained and nine police officers injured. Heavy rain forced organisers to postpone Barcelona’s demonstration.
The mobilisation followed Friday’s parliamentary defeat of measures designed to improve access to housing, strengthen tenants’ rights and curb evictions affecting vulnerable people. It also reflected anger that has grown since the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from her Madrid home on 23 September. ALSO READ: Spain’s housing decrees defeated as pressure grows on Sánchez to call snap election.
Madrid crowds converge on Cibeles
Demonstrators in Madrid set off from four locations around midday before converging on the central Plaza de Cibeles. The central government’s delegation estimated attendance at 70,000, while the organising Sindicato de Inquilinas, or Tenants’ Union, claimed half a million.
Chants included ‘Almeida, listen, Madrid is fighting’, directed at the city’s mayor, José Luis Martínez Almeida, and ‘What’s happening? We haven’t got a home’.
The marches added to sustained demonstrations, including a protest encampment established in central Madrid a week earlier. ALSO READ: Protesters vow to stay in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol as housing camp puts pressure on government.
Maricarmen Abascal’s removal on a stretcher from the apartment where she had lived since 1955 became a focal point for the housing movement. ALSO READ: Evicted Madrid pensioner could return home under eight-year rent agreement.
The case has sharpened an existing national debate over housing affordability. According to property website Idealista, average rents in Spain have almost doubled over the past decade, while asking prices for homes have increased by about 90%.
Unions seek support for a general strike
Tenants’ Union spokeswoman Valeria Racu said organisers were speaking to labour unions about calling a general strike ‘as soon as possible’.
‘We want to reclaim that historic tool that working people have always used to transform reality: the general strike,’ she told reporters on Saturday.
Racu argued that the recent mobilisation demonstrated the pressure collective action could exert.
‘Eight days of people’s power can achieve much more than eight years of progressive government,’ she said.
In a separate statement, she declared: ‘Now begins real politics — politics which has always belonged to the people and which will return once and for all to the streets.’
The Cádiz Tenants’ Union also announced that it would work towards a nationwide general strike following a demonstration in the city that organisers said attracted around 10,000 people.
Arrests and injuries in Valencia
In Valencia, some demonstrators left the planned route and approached the Palau de les Arts, within the City of Arts and Sciences complex, where the Valencia Real Estate Summit 2026 was taking place.
Police charged as people attempted to enter the venue. Local media reported that around 30 protesters gained access before being removed, and that officers used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse demonstrators.
At least five people were detained and nine officers injured, according to local media reports. The government delegation in the Valencian Community said more than 6,000 people participated in the marches.
Tourism pressures in the Canaries, encampment in Galicia
In Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, protesters highlighted the conversion of residential properties into tourist accommodation and called on the Canary Islands government to use existing housing legislation.
Some argued that much of the archipelago could qualify for designation as areas with stressed housing markets, allowing rent restrictions to be applied.
‘Young people have woken up. It is an issue that cuts across society, but it affects them, and they will keep fighting. We demand the right to a roof over our heads,’ Isabel, from the Tenants’ Union, told RTVE.
‘There is a national law that the Canary Islands government is not using and must apply now. People are living overcrowded and in cars. Homes are being devoted to tourism, those in the centre are in the hands of funds, and this has to end.’
The government delegation put attendance across the Canary Islands at 5,700. RTVE reported that five autonomous communities — Catalonia, the Basque Country, Navarre, Galicia and Asturias — had designated and implemented stressed residential market areas.
In Santiago de Compostela, thousands gathered in Praza do Obradoiro alongside an encampment organised by the Sindicato de Vivenda de Compostela. Established on Thursday, it had grown to around 50 tents by Saturday, with protesters intending to remain.
Chants included ‘Housing is a right, not a business’ and ‘Some people without homes camp all year round’.
Barcelona march postponed as political pressure grows
Severe weather disrupted the mobilisations in Catalonia. Following civil protection warnings over heavy rainfall, Barcelona organisers postponed their march until Monday 5 October, at 7pm in Plaça Urquinaona. A protest in neighbouring L’Hospitalet de Llobregat was also called off.
Meanwhile, the defeat of the housing decrees intensified pressure on Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s minority government.
The proposals included automatic renewal of tenancy contracts and restrictions on evicting vulnerable tenants. The Catalan pro-independence party Junts per Catalunya (JxCat), whose parliamentary support the government relies on, joined the right-wing opposition People’s Party (PP) and far-right Vox group in voting against them, arguing that the measures lacked rigour. ALSO READ: Cabinet approves two housing decrees after Madrid eviction, but faces uncertain vote in Congress.
Addressing Congress, Sánchez warned: ‘History will judge them sooner than they think and more forcefully than they imagine.’
After the vote, PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo urged him to “call elections as soon as possible”, saying that after eight years in power Sánchez had the backing of “neither the streets nor parliament”.
Spanish media reported that Sánchez was considering a snap election, potentially in November, and would assess the scale of Saturday’s protests before deciding. His office has so far declined to comment on those reports. The next scheduled general election is in 2027.
Enjoying the news from Spain in English? Add us as a preferred news source in Google.
Subscribe to the Weekly Newsletter from Spain in English.
Protestas por la vivienda en decenas de ciudades de España con la mira puesta en la huelga general.https://t.co/Lrd4slMYmw
— EFE Noticias (@EFEnoticias) October 3, 2026
Las mejores imágenes de las manifestaciones por la vivienda que recorren las calles de decenas de ciudades de Españahttps://t.co/wfyXTw6fUP pic.twitter.com/9rqQma7Aw1
— RTVE Noticias (@rtvenoticias) October 3, 2026
#Canal24Horas | El Sindicato de Inquilinas de Barcelona cambia la fecha de la manifestación prevista para esta tarde debido a la alerta por lluvias
— RTVE Noticias (@rtvenoticias) October 3, 2026
A esta hora, continúa la acampada en Plaça Catalunya
💬Alba López | @rtvenoticies pic.twitter.com/77SoGGHRgh
Click here to get your business activity or services listed on our DIRECTORY.