Clashes erupt in Barcelona after thousands join Spain general strike

The conservative People’s Party (PP), by contrast, has accused the government of attempting to weaponise the strike for electoral gain.

PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo called the general strike “nonsense”, calling the unions “mafia” and “trash”. Feijoo’s party is leading in the polls and party spokesman Miguel Tellado accused the government of exploiting the strike to warn voters against allowing a right-wing government to be formed, which looks the most likely outcome of the 29 November election.

Sánchez told Spanish TV this week: “What is nonsense is to question the rights of workers to strike.”

Among those taking part in the general strike was Gonzalo Álvarez, 27, who was visiting different picket lines in central Madrid.

Although he works in sales, he has been volunteering for a housing union that tries to protect tenants and makes them aware of their rights.

The eviction of Maricarmen Abascal at the end of September “was the little fire” that sparked this protest, he told the BBC.

Álvarez knew the 87-year-old, who had faced a tripling of her rent under new landlords, and says he was deeply upset by her treatment.

He rents a small, one-bedroom flat with his girlfriend, a dental hygienist, in the city’s southern Arganzuela disrict. The couple pay €1,000 between them, which means each spends about half of their salary on housing, even before other bills.

“It’s absolutely crazy… with the food, with the electricity, with the water, with gas.”

He sees no way of getting on the property ladder: “You have to collect an insane amount of money to be able to buy a house. So with these salaries, it’s impossible.”

With current rent and purchase prices, he believes buying somewhere is “completely impossible”.