MADRID – When an octogenarian was evicted last week from the home she had lived in for 70 years, it kicked off a wave of protests across Spain.

Maricarmen Abascal, who was carried out of her home on a stretcher, has become a symbol of the plight of thousands across the country who face soaring rents amid an acute housing shortage.

Hundreds of tents have been pitched in Puerta del Sol, a Madrid square that is one of the Spanish capital’s most famous tourist attractions, to demand more protection for tenants. Colourful signs adorn the tents, with messages like “Derecho al Techo” (“right to a roof”) and “You could be the next Maricarmen”.

Similar protests have sprung up in Barcelona, where Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez visited on Monday, and in Seville, Malaga and other major cities.

Many in Spain are struggling to cope with house prices that have doubled in a decade, in a country where wages have lagged far behind rising costs. It is a more extreme version of a problem affecting many countries across Europe, including the UK.

Cities like Madrid and Barcelona, and areas like Costa Blanca, Andalusia and the Balearic Islands – where overtourism has reduced the amount of homes available to locals – are among the worst affected.

Ms Abascal was taken to hospital last week after she was evicted amid clashes between supporters and riot police. From her hospital bed, she urged protesters to keep fighting.

“Be brave, fight, defend what is yours and, please, take care of yourselves,” she said in a video distributed by the Tenants’ Union on Monday. “Keep camping there for as long as your bodies can hold out and as long as you wish to. Let’s hope all this comes to a successful conclusion tomorrow.”

In response to the widespread fury, Spain’s government reached a deal with other political parties on Tuesday to offer more protection to renters, but the bill must be passed by parliament. Measures include a ban on evictions until 2030, tighter rules for short-term rentals and a two-year extension for existing leases, health minister Monica García said.

Urbagestion – an independent company specialized in managing commercial and residential neighborhoods – bought the property in 2018 and tried increased the rent from €500 a month (£428) to €2,650 (£2,280). It later offered to reduce this to €1,650, but Ms Abascal was unable to pay. Her monthly pension is €1,350.

Amid widespread condemnation of its decision to oust a frail pensioner, the investment fund has agreed to let her return to her home on the same rent she was paying before.

According to Spanish police, Urbagestion was sent a box full of cockroaches and has received death threats since the eviction.

Pope Leo XIV has weighed in, telling reporters as he left a papal visit to France: “What is the problem in the system which allows an elderly person to be evicted?”

British concert pianist James Rhodes, who lives in Madrid, said he offered to buy the flat for Ms Abascal, but the company declined. “I wrote to the fund saying, ‘Look this is a disaster for you. Let me buy the apartment and rent it to her and we all win – you get the money, she gets her home,’” Rhodes, who also has Spanish citizenship, told The i Paper.

“It’s profit above all else. If it were your grandmother, what would you say?” he added, while criticising the Spanish government and Madrid authorities for allowing the situation to reach this point.

Ms Abascal’s case, however extreme, is far from isolated. On Tuesday, while the government was discussing the new housing bill, a family with three children was evicted from the home they had lived in for 11 years in Mataró, near Barcelona, after the owners raised the rent.

Spain has a deficit of about 750,000 homes, which is set to grow to one million by 2028, according to the Bank of Spain. (In Britain, the Government has pledged to build 1.5 million new homes to try to address its own housing needs.)

With a lack of affordable homes and fewer people able to afford to buy, rents in Spain have surged. The average monthly rent of €1,176 (£1,004) is equivalent to about 98.7 per cent of the average monthly salary, according to the Youth Council of Spain.

Gema Ortiz, a 26-year-old teacher who was born in the Madrid neighbourhood of La Latina, said she had to move out because a company bought the building where she lived and it’s now full of tourist flats. “I could not afford the rent and had to go back to live with my parents,” she told The i Paper, while attending the protests in Madrid.

Victor Díaz, a 33-year-old lawyer, said he had come to protest to try to stop this happening to others. “I have a small place in Madrid but like most people I struggle to afford it, and the building could be bought at any time by a company and I could be kicked out.”

Spanish tenants’ groups want an automatic renewal of rental contracts to be put in place, similar to the indefinite rental contracts that exist in The Netherlands, Austria and Germany that also cap the amount that rents can be increased annually, and a measure, like the one now in place in Britain, to prohibit the eviction of tenants without justification.

This won’t solve Spain’s housing crisis, but it would likely stop more 87-year-olds from being forcibly removed from their longtime homes.