Tens of Thousands Join Spain Nationwide Strike Over Housing Costs

Tens of thousands of protesters marched across Spain on Wednesday during a general strike over housing affordability and purchasing power just weeks before an early general election.

Unions reported a significant response in some sectors in Spain's first nationwide 24-hour stoppage since 2012, but business leaders played down the participation.

Braving heavy rain, tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through central Madrid carrying placards shaped like houses and chanting "We have no home" as they called for more



affordable housing.

"People work a lot and it isn't enough to pay the rent, to pay for a house," Paula Diaz, a 25-year-old theatre technician who lives with her parents, told Media at the Madrid protest.

"I hope a government that benefits us comes to power, especially the working class," she added.

In Barcelona, where the authorities estimated 55,000 people marched through the city's luxury Passeig de Gracia commercial thoroughfare, Maria Pinana told Media "the law of supply and demand does not apply to housing".