Evicted Spanish pensioner at heart of Spain’s housing protests dies

Maricarmen Abascal, the 87-year-old woman whose ‌eviction sparked housing protests in Spain, has died, Madrid’s tenants’ union ​said on Wednesday.Abascal’s eviction sparked a series of protests across Spain in the past couple of weeks, including ​activists camping on one of Madrid’s main squares, and calls ⁠for tackling a mounting housing crisis.Abascal was removed from the home in Madrid where she had lived for 70 years after she was hit with a 230 per cent rent hike demanded by the investment fund that bought her apartment.Those protests, along ‌with ‌parliament’s ​rejection last week of decrees aimed at curbing evictions and limiting rent pressures, ⁠prompted prime minister ​Pedro Sánchez to call ​an early election for November 29th.READ MORESánchez is seeking ‌to shift the political ​narrative from his government’s handling of a migrant ⁠crisis in Spain’s ⁠North African ​enclave of Ceuta and a series of corruption cases involving his Socialist Party and his family to the housing crisis, an area in which he can harness growing resentment about rising rents.Angel Victor Torres, Spain’s ‌territorial policy minister, lamented ⁠the news, saying Abascal had become a symbol of what was happening to many ‌families, elderly and young people struggling to obtain their own ​homes or stay in them. – Reuters