The protest camp in Alicante’s Plaza de la Montañeta will stay put despite the snap election, its organisers say. They won’t leave until measures they consider effective are approved.
“Nothing has changed”
Carlos Pastor, spokesperson for the Sindicat de Vivenda de Carolines, said Pedro Sánchez’s election announcement hasn’t altered the camp’s plans. In his words, the announcement “has changed nothing”. The groups’ stated aim has always been to force institutions to pay attention to people struggling to access decent housing, and he says that pressure continues.
The camp is run by two housing unions, the Sindicat de Vivenda de Carolines and the Sindicat de Vivenda de la Zona Nord. They say it will be lifted only when their demands are met, and Pastor described the mobilisation as indefinite.
What they want
Pastor listed demands that go well beyond a single decree:
- Indefinite rental contracts
- A general reduction in rents
- Expropriation of homes held by “vulture funds”
- A stable public housing stock, managed directly by public bodies such as the Valencian housing entity EVHA, to offer real alternatives to vulnerable families and prevent further evictions
He also referred to Maricarmen, the 87-year-old woman whose eviction sparked the national protests, saying everyone would remember what she went through.
The numbers on the ground
By the union’s own count, about 200 people are taking part in the Alicante camp, and just over 100 of them sleep there overnight. Monday morning saw fewer people in the plaza, which Pastor put down to participants balancing the protest with work. He expects numbers to recover at the weekend.
Rain fell on the camp overnight. Organisers replaced tents for those who needed it, and Pastor said nobody spent the night wet.
Permits, and a calculated risk
The organisers say they apply for permits daily. Following the example of similar protests elsewhere, they didn’t wait for authorisations before setting up. Pastor argues the authorities can’t remove them, because a forced eviction of a housing protest would be a damaging image nobody wants.
One camp among many
Alicante’s camp is smaller than Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, where organisers claim more than 2,000 tents. It belongs to a wider pattern of camps in Spanish cities. A related Diario de Alicante headline notes that campers in Valencia have moved their tents to allow the 9 d’Octubre regional-day events, which suggests these camps are adapting to city life as well as challenging it.
NLS Analysis
The demands outrun the decrees. The revived rental-renewal decree speaks to the first demand, indefinite contracts, but it still needs validation by the Diputación Permanente and would take effect on 15 November at the earliest. Rent cuts and expropriation of fund-owned homes go further than anything in the package. This suggests that even if the decrees survive, the camps may not leave.
The pressure is local as well as national. Idealista’s latest data put Alicante province’s asking rents at a record €12.7/m², up 7.1% in a year, and Alicante city at €13.9/m², up 5.9%. Idealista says growth is moderating, but the numbers give the camp’s argument an everyday reference point.
Both sides of the risk. Landlords, agents and investors on the Costa Blanca face policy risk in two directions: from rules that could tighten, and from a political climate in which housing has become a street-level issue that will outlast the 29 November election.
NLS Conclusion
An Alicante plaza now holds a few hundred people and a clear message: the election doesn’t end the protest. Whoever governs after 29 November inherits a housing debate with tents in it.
Sources: Diario de Alicante (5 October 2026); CB Noticias; idealista; BBC; Majorca Daily Bulletin.
