San Francisco Frontiers - Protests over housing flare in Spain after relief measures rejected

The demonstrations extended a crisis that has gone on for more than a week, triggered by the September 23 forced expulsion of a pensioner, 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal, from her Madrid flat.

The defeat was another political setback for Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and has renewed questions over whether his minority government can survive until the next scheduled general election in 2027.

His government's proposed measures, which included automatic renewal of tenancy contracts and restrictions on evicting vulnerable tenants, were shot down by opposition parties on Friday in Spain's parliament.

The defeat infuriated those protesting the country's increasingly expensive housing market.

Hundreds of protesters have been occupying a tent city set up a week ago in the heart of Madrid to press for reforms.

On Saturday demonstrators marched through the capital's streets. Authorities said 70,000 people were protesting. Organisers put the figure at 500,000.

Marcos Sainz, a librarian of 26, used to rent a two-bedroom apartment with friends for a monthly rent of 900 euros ($1,000) but complains today a one-bedroom flat often costs 1,000 euros -- or half the median monthly salary in Madrid.

He told AFP he will 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

Javier, a solar panel installer of 31, explained that "we are demanding a fundamental right: decent housing, stability and conditions allowing us to construct a decent life project".

He added that "I spend half of my salary on a tiny room".

"What we are feeling in the streets is a new energy that we haven't seen in a long time, and 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 said.

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.

Average rents in Spain have almost doubled over the past decade, while asking prices for homes have risen by about 90 percent, according to real estate website Idealista.

Abascal's eviction catalysed long-running anger about runaway housing costs.

The pensioner was forced to leave the Madrid flat where she had lived for more than seven decades after it was acquired by an investment company that sought to increase her rent by 275 percent, according to housing campaigners.

The backlash led the property's new owners to reach a deal allowing her to return to the flat at a low rent.

Early election call

The housing bills Sanchez's leftist coalition had presented to parliament were rejected after the Catalan separatist party Junts -- on whose support the government relies -- voted against them, arguing they lacked rigour.

Junts joined the main opposition Popular Party (PP) and the far-right Vox party in shooting down the measures.

After the vote, PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo, urged Sanchez to "call elections as soon as possible".

After eight years in power, Sanchez had the backing of "neither the streets nor parliament", he added.

Recent opinion polls have generally placed the opposition Popular Party ahead of the Socialists.

H.King--SFF