MADRID, Spain (PNN) - October 2, 2026 - On September 23, an image went viral online showing an 87-year-old woman on a stretcher, wheeled out by paramedics in Spain’s Madrid. She wasn’t sick. Instead, she was being evicted from a house she called home for more than seven decades.
Now, almost a fortnight later, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has called a snap election for November 29, noting that “it is time for Spaniards to decide what future you want.”
“To do more, we need to renew and broaden the support of the people,” Sanchez said, adding that his aim was “to secure a much broader, progressive majority in Parliament.” (Ed. Note: Progressive means a Marxist socialist unfree society).
But what do the two have in common? How is the eviction of the 87-year-old linked to the snap election call by Pedro Sanchez?
On September 23, María del Carmen Abascal, a pensioner with a disability, was forced out of her home in Madrid’s Retiro neighborhood for failure to pay rent.
She had taken over the lease of the house from her father in 1956 and enjoyed capped rent. However, in 2018, her apartment was bought by an investment firm, and rent skyrocketed from €500 (Rs 53,970) to €1,650 (Rs 1.78 lakh).
The move angered residents in Madrid, many of them chanting slogans such as “Maricarmen, you’re not alone!” and “Murderers!”
The eviction also led to tense scenes outside the building, where police forcibly removed protesters blocking the entrance. Officers were seen dragging and pushing demonstrators, lifting some by their arms and legs as they cleared the doorway.
The eviction of María del Carmen Abascal isn’t a lone issue in Spain. Instead, it reflects the deep-seated frustration over housing in the European nation.
Spain has witnessed difficulties in housing, be it renting or buying. Over the past decade, rental prices have surged, particularly in large cities like Madrid. For instance, rent has nearly doubled in a decade, rising from €12.8 (Rs 1,300) per square meter in August 2016 to €23.3 (Rs 2,515) in August 2026, according to data from the real estate website Idealista.
The situation is no better when it comes to buying a house. The price has risen by 227.9% in 10 years. In 2016, a house sold for €2,839 (Rs 3.06 lakh) per square meter. This August, it has gone up to €6,471 (Rs 6.99 lakh). These prices are in stark contrast with the average annual salary.
According to the Bank of Spain, a deficit of about 750,000 homes is set to grow to more than a million by 2028, almost double that of Italy.
Writing more about this, Spanish journalist Jorge Dioni Lopez wrote in Vanity Fair, “Spain is a nation of homeowners. Unlike in other European countries, almost all the public housing that has been built has ended up in private hands, and historically, homeownership has been more attractive than renting.
“Housing is our savings system and also the primary means of transmitting wealth between generations,” he added.
It seems that Abascal’s case became the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Despite María del Carmen Abascal being granted relief and allowed back into her home, the situation has prompted strong protests from residents across different cities in Spain.
While some have chosen to camp outside the Madrid regional government’s headquarters, others in cities such as Barcelona have taken out marches, demanding solutions to the housing crisis.
Demonstrations have also taken place in cities such as Palma de Mallorca, Santander, Segovia and Toledo. In Valencia, demonstrators clashed with police, who fired rubber bullets and tear gas to break up protests. Around 30 protesters got inside the City of Arts and Sciences, a landmark cultural building in the city, before they were removed by police.
The protesters demand an automatic renewal of rental contracts, similar to what exists in the Netherlands, Austria and Germany and a measure in Britain, to prohibit the eviction of tenants without justification. They also seek legal measures to stop evictions, the regulation of by-the-room rental contracts and a rent freeze.
In an attempt to quell the anger, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s minority government introduced emergency housing measures in Parliament on October 2.
The first decree would stop evictions of vulnerable people, make real estate speculation harder, impose tighter restrictions on short-term leases, and provide tax incentives to encourage renting and the construction of housing. The second decree proposed making leases automatically renew when they are set to expire, essentially making them indefinite. A property owner would have to pay a tenant 12 months of rent to break the contract.
Sanchez appealed to lawmakers across Party lines to pass these measures to address the housing crisis. “Think about ordinary people, about those who most need the protection of public institutions. Think about the millions of young people who cannot afford to move out of their parents’ homes. Think about the families living with the constant anxiety of ever-rising rents,” he said before the vote.
However, his proposed measures were shot down by the majority of the 350-seat lower house of Parliament.
Miriam Nogueras of Junts argued the decrees would lead only to owners removing their properties from the rental market and thus driving up prices even further. “If they really wanted to protect people, collar the vulture funds and reactivate housing, they would have already done it. They’ve had eight years,” she said on X, referring to Sanchez’s government.
This led to even more anger among residents of Spain, with some stating that they would continue their encampment in Madrid. Chants of “your profits, our misery” rang out loud and clear across the Spanish capital.
With the public anger showing no signs of dissipating, Spain’s Pedro Sanchez called for snap elections on November 29.
In a televised address, Sanchez noted, “We need to renew people’s support. We need to mobilize and win a much larger progressive (meaning Marxist/socialist) majority in Parliament, one that will allow us to overcome vested interests, deliver new social advances and continue transforming Spain.”
He also acknowledged that mistakes had been made and he had fallen short of his campaign promises. “I also know that part of that social majority is dissatisfied today,” he said, vowing to fight for Spain to remain “a bastion of openness, social justice and environmental responsibility”.
However, this is a huge gamble for Sanchez, who has been in power since 2018. That’s because his Socialist Party trails in nearly every opinion poll.
An electoral defeat for Sanchez wouldn’t be just a loss for him but would also spell the end of one of Europe’s last few Marxist governments.