María del Carmen Abascal, symbol of Spain’s housing protests, dies aged 87

Maricarmen’s eviction from Madrid apartment after over seven decades set off wave of protests against housing crisis

‘Now is the moment’: housing activists at Madrid encampment pin wary hopes on Spain’s early election

María del Carmen Abascal, the 87-year-old whose eviction set off a nationwide wave of protests against Spain’s housing crisis, has died.

The pensioner, whose apartment had been purchased by an investment firm who sought to hike her rent by 230%, swiftly became a symbol of the many left behind by Spain’s surging housing market.

About 10,000 people took to the streets of Madrid hours later, wielding signs such as “Shame” and “We’re all Maricarmen”. From Spain’s north to the south, people poured into plazas to protest the suffering wrought by rents that had soared 80% in the span of a decade while house prices had climbed 63%.

From the hospital where she was being treated for severe exhaustion, Abascal cheered on the fledgling movement. “I would like to be there with you all,” she said in a video shot from her hospital bed. “But I’m not that lucky. So from here, I ask you all for courage and to fight and defend what is yours.”

This week the wave of outrage led the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, to call a snap general election after rightwing and far-right parties voted down two emergency decrees his government had proposed to address the housing crisis.

“The events triggered by the injustice of her eviction undoubtedly mark a turning point in the history of this country: massive demonstrations, encampments in the squares, an early election, and the call for a general strike,” it added. “The housing debate is at the center of it all, but the cost of getting to this point has been too high.”

Spain’s health minister, Mónica García, said Abascal’s plight had “served to awaken awareness across all of Spain, lighting a fuse that cannot be put out”, and adding that her “dignity and courage” had shown the way.

The Podemos MEP and former equalities minister Irene Montero was more blunt. “This isn’t a death; it’s a murder,” she wrote on social media. “Such bloody anger. Thank you for fighting, Maricarmen.”

“No campaigning, no political parties, no partisan ends, no more bricks in the wall,” he wrote on social media. “When a person dies there should be nothing but respect.”

The 21 measures include facilitating renting or buying a new home; extending eviction protections for vulnerable residents; regulating room rentals; imposing a new tax on seasonal rentals; prohibiting speculative real estate purchases; and granting tax breaks to property owners and tenants who pay on time.