‘It’s just too expensive’: Housing and wages at the heart of Spain’s strike

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Mass walkout across several cities marks first general strike in 14 years.

Madrid, Spain – In central Madrid, business owners seemed to have taken note of the riots that erupted in Paris last month.

Amid a nationwide strike, many have boarded up their shop windows on Wednesday.

Police are lined up in front of some major department stores. At others, police vans protect the entrances.

This is the first national general strike in Spain in 14 years, and it is all about the lack of affordable housing.

The protesters who have blocked the city’s central Gran Via are angry and frustrated.

The catalyst for the strike was the eviction, in September, of 87-year-old Maria del Carmen Abascal, known as Maricarmen, from her home of seventy years because she could not afford a fivefold increase in her monthly rent of 500 euros ($555).

It exposed a crisis in the lack of affordable housing, particularly in the country’s major cities.

“Housing is a fundamental problem”, Antonio, a teacher, tells us. “It consumes the majority of a working person’s wages. Wages – or rather, the need for wage increases – are another fundamental issue. We are fighting for a combination of things: lower housing costs and higher wages.”

The country’s youth council says that a young person would need to spend 98.7 percent of their monthly salary to rent a place on their own.

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