Sawt Falasteen - Thousands march in Madrid over eviction of 87-year-old woman

Images of Maricarmen Abascal being carried from her Madrid flat on a stretcher on Wednesday after police broke down her door have thrust Spain's housing crisis back into the spotlight ahead of a general election due in 2027.

Protesters chanted slogans and held banners calling for measures to curb rising housing costs and make evictions more difficult as they marched through central Madrid.

"You could be the next Maricarmen," read one banner.

Abascal, who has become a symbol of Spain's housing crisis, urged Spaniards to join the fight in a video message posted online just hours before the protest.

"I want what has happened to me to serve so that it does not happen to other people," she said from hospital, where she has been treated for exhaustion since her eviction.

"I want it to encourage people to fight and to help change the laws that have allowed me to be evicted," she added in the video, posted by Spain's main tenants' union.

Abascal was forced to leave the apartment where she had lived for 70 years after a real estate firm acquired the property and raised the rent by 275 percent to 2,650 euros ($3,000), according to the union.

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who last year pledged to make housing a government priority, is under growing pressure to act. There have been regular protests across Spain since Abascal's eviction.

His government is expected to approve a package of measures dubbed the "Maricarmen decree" at its next cabinet meeting, including the automatic renewal of rental contracts and further restrictions on evictions.

But it is unclear whether the package will be approved by parliament, where Sanchez's government lacks a majority.

While a similar bill was defeated earlier this year, Abascal's case has increased pressure on political parties to act.

C.Hamad--SF-PST