Smaller demonstrations took place in other cities, including Palma de Mallorca, Santander, Segovia and Toledo. In Valencia, five people were arrested after clashes with police, local media reported.
At the Madrid protest Marcos Sainz, a librarian of 26, said used to rent a two-bedroom apartment with friends for a total monthly rent of 900 euros (US$1,000). Today, a one-bedroom flat today often costs 1,000 euros – or half the median monthly salary in the capital, he told AFP.
He would protest rental spikes “until someone dares to regulate it all as (otherwise) we’ll all have to leave Madrid and that would be a shame as I am from Madrid”.
CALL FOR GENERAL STRIKE
“We are demanding a fundamental right,” said Javier, a 31-year-old solar panel installer. “Decent housing, stability and conditions allowing us to construct a decent life project.
“I spend half of my salary on a tiny room,” he added.
“What we are feeling in the streets is a new energy that we haven’t seen in a long time — an energy that is showing that eight days of people’s power can achieve more than eight years of progressive government,” Valeria Racu, one of the spokespeople of the Tenants’ Union organising the protest, said in a statement.
“Now begins real politics – politics which has always belonged to the people and which will return once and for all to the streets,” she added.
She repeated her union’s call for a general strike.
Housing has for years been a top concern for Spaniards as supply falls short of demand, with rents and house prices rising as elsewhere in the European Union.
