MADRID: Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Barcelona on Satuday evening to demonstrate for affordable housing, according to the German news agency dpa, citing local reports.
Police spoke of about 22,000 participants while the organisers said 170,000 attended, the Spanish news agency Europapress reported.
Demonstrators demanded that rents be reduced by half, the daily El País and other media reported.
Protesters also want vacant flats and tourist accommodation to be made available again to the residents of Barcelona, the capital of the Catalonia region in north-eastern Spain, and for rental contracts to be valid for an unlimited period.
“It is no longer acceptable for us to spend half of our salary on rent and to have to pack our things again every time a contract expires,” Carme Arcarazo, spokeswoman for the tenants’ association Sindicatos de Inquilinos, told El País.
Various political parties and trade unions also took part in the solidarity demonstration.
According to El País, the situation on the already strained housing market in Barcelona is being further exacerbated by residential housing increasingly being used to put up tourists and the fact that foreign investors are buying property there, which in turn helps them to obtain visas.
In recent months there have also been protests against high rents and the impact of mass tourism in other Spanish cities and on the Spanish islands. – BERNAMA-dpa
