Thousands of Portuguese protest against rising rents
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Al Jazeera and Seneweb
Thousands of Portuguese mobilised on Saturday in Lisbon and about thirty other towns against rising rents and the housing crisis. They are calling for government action in the face of prices that have risen much faster than incomes, according to Al Jazeera.
Between 2015 and 2025, Portugal was the EU country where the cost of housing rose the most relative to household incomes, by 60.8%, compared with 34.3% in the Netherlands, according to Eurostat.
The mobilisation was triggered by the first-reading adoption, at the end of September, of a government reform bill aimed in particular at speeding up and simplifying tenant evictions. The bill benefited from the abstention of the far right.
Housing rights activists then tried to set up camps in Lisbon and Porto, but the police evicted them several times. President Antonio José Seguro called on the government and the opposition to engage in dialogue, while his exchanges with Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, the far right and the Socialists have produced no concrete progress.
