On Saturday, October 3, 2026, hundreds of thousands of people marched across Spain to protest a deepening housing crisis, a day after parliament voted down two government decrees meant to protect tenants. Organizers said about 500,000 people joined the demonstration in Madrid, while the authorities put the figure at around 70,000. Four columns of protesters converged on Madrid's Plaza de Cibeles, and rallies took place in more than 50 Spanish cities, with clashes in Valencia.
The Saturday marches followed a bruising defeat for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's minority government. On Friday, the Congress of Deputies rejected both emergency housing decrees: the first fell 178 to 172, the second 184 to 166. Sánchez closed a five-hour debate with a last-ditch plea, calling the measures "necessary" and telling lawmakers, "Do the right thing, or history will judge you." It did not move the room. Outside, protesters chanted "your profits, our misery," while members of the public in the chamber's gallery shouted "vulture funds govern the congress!"
The decisive blow came from Junts, the right-wing Catalan separatist party that was once an ally of the government. Hours before the vote, Junts announced it would oppose both decrees, arguing they would shrink housing supply and make things worse. Together with the conservative People's Party and the far-right Vox, Junts buried the package.
The wave of anger began on September 23, when 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal was evicted from the Madrid apartment where she had lived for more than seven decades. Police carried her out of the building on a stretcher. Reports said the investment company that acquired the property wanted to raise her rent by 275 percent. The images detonated nationwide outrage, and under pressure the new owners agreed to let her return at a low rent.
Her case became the emblem of a housing movement that has been building for months. Young people have been camping in Madrid's Puerta del Sol for about a week — an encampment that recalls the anti-austerity sit-ins of Spain's 2008–2012 financial crisis. A union of tenants drove the mobilization, pressing lawmakers to pass the decrees before the vote.
The numbers explain the fury. Average rents in Spain have nearly doubled over the past decade, rising from about €8.20 per square meter in 2016 to about €15.10 recently. Many young people still live with their parents well past the age of 30, priced out of an independent life.
The Tenants' Union's demands are uncompromising: cut rents by half, introduce open-ended rental contracts, and expropriate homes held by "vulture funds." Its spokeswoman Valeria Racu told reporters there is "an irreparable disconnect between what the people want and what the parties vote for."
The defeat leaves Sánchez in a tight spot. Spanish media reported he might bring forward elections — due next year — to November, and that he was watching the strength of Saturday's protests before deciding. His office declined to comment. The People's Party has ordered its machinery into electoral readiness, while Vox has publicly doubted whether Sánchez will actually dissolve parliament.
Valencia saw the day's sharpest confrontation. Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to break up the protest there, where some demonstrators tried to enter the City of Arts and Sciences, a landmark cultural complex; about 30 got inside before being removed. Demonstrations in the other 50-plus cities were peaceful. Rallies planned in Barcelona and nearby L'Hospitalet de Llobregat were called off because of heavy-rain warnings.
The encampment in Puerta del Sol is not going away. Organizers said it will continue and expand into more neighborhoods. The Tenants' Union said it is negotiating with Spain's two largest trade unions about calling a general strike — no date yet, but the union says it wants it to be "historic." Employers' confederation CEOE pushed back immediately; its president Antonio Garamendi called a housing-linked strike "illegal" and warned he would take action if one is called.
Housing has returned to the center of Spanish politics. After the vote, Junts offered to negotiate its own housing proposals with the government — an olive branch the Socialists (PSOE) met skeptically, noting the rejected decrees already included those ideas. The parliamentary chess game goes on. The anger on the street is not cooling either.