"It's a new 15-M": Maricarmen's eviction unleashes a wave of solidarity that culminates in a historic encampment in Puerta del Sol

A group of attendees has spontaneously started a camp in Madrid's Puerta del Sol at the end of the housing demonstration held this Saturday, in a protest that seeks to maintain pressure on the Government and demand, among other measures, the approval of the so-called "Maricarmen decree", as reported by the Madrid Tenants' Union in a statement.

The mobilization, which has extended after the march, is part of a pressure strategy aimed at the Executive of Pedro Sánchez and the parties that make up the opposition -PP, Vox and Junts-, to whom the conveners demand an immediate response to a housing emergency that, they argue, affects millions of people in Spain. The organization has stressed that what happened to Maricarmen "cannot happen again" and has defended that it is "urgent and necessary" to adopt structural measures to modify the housing model.

Maricarmen herself has asked the President of the Government to promote the norm through a video disseminated on social networks, in which she stated: "I want what happened to me to serve for people to fight and for unjust laws to be changed".

The measures demanded by the Tenants' Union from political parties

The organization has placed the approval of the "Maricarmen decree" as a starting point to address the housing access crisis and has detailed a battery of demands that includes:

• Automatic renewal of all contracts so that they become indefinite, as occurs in countries like England, Germany or Austria.
• Structural measures against evictions, with the aim of stopping the evictions of vulnerable families and households.
• Freezing of CPI updates in rental prices.
• A reform of the Urban Leases Law (LAU) to regulate seasonal and room contracts.
• Effective extensions of contracts that are in force.

In its approach, the union argues that housing must stop functioning as "a speculative business" and become a guaranteed right, a demand that, they defend, requires fundamental regulatory changes and not just specific measures.

More pressure actions in several cities

Parallel to the encampment in Madrid, "pressure" concentrations have been called in numerous cities, including Burgos, León, Ibiza, Córdoba, Zamora, Almería, and Huesca, awaiting the announcement of new dates in the coming days. The protest is thus part of a coordinated offensive that seeks to amplify the housing movement's demands and place them at the center of political debate.