Clashes in Barcelona as thousands join Spain general strike

Clashes have broken out between groups of protesters and police in Barcelona after tens of thousands of people took part in Spain's first general strike for 14 years, called by the country's main unions over housing and the high cost of living.

Some 120,000 people joined a demonstration in the capital Madrid and more than 50,000 turned out in Barcelona, where footage showed masked men setting fire to rubbish bins and smashing shop windows as police fired tear gas.

Transport and other public services across Spain faced serious disruption.

Spaniards are due to vote in parliamentary elections on 29 November.

The head of the big UGT labour union, Pepe Álvarez, said the strike was a success with "massive" participation, while Unai Sordo of the CC OO union said turnout was "very significant."

Some of the biggest disruption on Wednesday was seen in the main industrial hubs of Madrid and the north-eastern region of Catalonia where traffic was halted on several main roads.

The interior ministry said dozens of people were arrested for a variety of incidents and Spanish reports said estate agencies had seen attacks on their offices. Traffic was blocked on several highways in the Madrid area and the north-eastern region of Catalonia.

The strike was triggered by widespread protests over affordable housing and rising living costs, after the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from a flat in Madrid where she had lived for seven decades. She died in hospital weeks later.

Rental prices in the capital have risen in recent years. The monthly cost of a 50 sq m apartment in Madrid was an average of €1,170 ($1,300; £1,000) in October, according to property portal Idealista, while Spain's average gross monthly salary is about €2,460.

That amounts to nearly half the average gross salary, well above the 30% level of affordability often recommended by housing experts and public institutions.

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called snap elections last month after parliament failed to approve his plan for housing reform.

Not since 2012, under the conservative government of Mariano Rajoy, has Spain held general strikes.

And while previous strikes have been problematic for the government in power, this one is different. Sánchez and his ministers have even encouraged workers to down tools and demand affordable housing.

"Your eight-hour day. Your pension. Your public healthcare… These were collective conquests," he wrote on social media, praising those who took part in previous strikes.

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The conservative People's Party (PP), by contrast, has accused the government of attempting to weaponise the strike for electoral gain.

PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo called the general strike "nonsense", calling the unions "mafia" and "trash". Feijoo's party is leading in the polls and party spokesman Miguel Tellado accused the government of exploiting the strike to warn voters against allowing a right-wing government to be formed, which looks the most likely outcome of the 29 November election.

Sánchez told Spanish TV this week: "What is nonsense is to question the rights of workers to strike."

Among those taking part in the general strike was Gonzalo Álvarez, 27, who was visiting different picket lines in central Madrid.

Although he works in sales, he has been volunteering for a housing union that tries to protect tenants and makes them aware of their rights.

The eviction of Maricarmen Abascal at the end of September "was the little fire" that sparked this protest, he told the BBC.

Álvarez knew the 87-year-old, who had faced a tripling of her rent under new landlords, and says he was deeply upset by her treatment.

He rents a small, one-bedroom flat with his girlfriend, a dental hygienist, in the city's southern Arganzuela disrict. The couple pay €1,000 between them, which means each spends about half of their salary on housing, even before other bills.

"It's absolutely crazy… with the food, with the electricity, with the water, with gas."

He sees no way of getting on the property ladder: "You have to collect an insane amount of money to be able to buy a house. So with these salaries, it's impossible."

With current rent and purchase prices, he believes buying somewhere is "completely impossible".

However, the vice-president of the CEOE, Spanish biggest business association, Miguel Garrido, criticised the strike, complaining that businesses had little to do with the price of housing.