Around a hundred tents were still standing in the Aragonese capital on Friday morning, after a saucepan protest called on Thursday afternoon turned into a protest camp. Dozens of young people spent the night camping outside the Zaragoza Provincial Council to demand improvements in access to housing, particularly regarding rental prices. Early on Friday, signs bearing slogans such as “being a landlord is not a profession” and “Our home is not a market asset” could still be seen on the ground and walls.
They have thus joined the camp that began in Madrid’s Sol district after Maricarmen’s eviction and has spread to different cities to also show opposition to the new decrees approved by the Council of Ministers, which they consider “insufficient.” Paula, one of the spokespersons for the Tenants’ Union, described it as a “watered-down decree” that does not stop all evictions, but only “certain cases” and “for some time,” meaning it fails to meet their ultimate demand: “an end to all evictions.”
They have therefore called for a “radical reduction in prices,” claiming that rents in some areas have risen “by 80 or even 100%” over the past 10 years. “At the very least, they should be cut in half,” she insisted. They have also demanded that housing owned by “vulture funds” be expropriated and placed at the service of the needs of the social majority. “We know that a huge amount of vacant and tourist housing is in the hands of banks and large property owners. It should be expropriated,” she stressed.
The march will begin at 6 p.m. in Santo Domingo Square and is expected to end at the Spanish Government Delegation in Aragon.
