Thousands of protesters take to the streets in Valencia for housing and hundreds of people camp at City Hall

Several thousand protesters – about 15,000 according to the Government Delegation – toured the center of Valencia this afternoon to claim the right to housing and against the touristification of the city under the motto Valencia s’ofega (València se drowns), which commemorates the flood that flooded the city on October 14, 1957. At the end of the demonstration, hundreds of people camped in the Town Hall square.

In front of the town hall around 300 people, according to local media, They have camped “autonomously” shouting “if we don’t have a house, we will occupy the square”, several social organizations have announced.

Four columns of protesters left from different parts of the city and converged at 6:30 p.m. at the Seranos Towers, on whose battlements several protesters hung a large banner. with the motto “for the right to a home” and a Palestinian flag. Both have been removed by agents of the National Police.

The conveners, among whom are the Consell de la Joventut, CCOO PV, the PSPV-PSOE, Compromís per València, Sumar or Acció Cultural del País Valencià, among other neighborhood and cultural associations of the Valencian capital, demand the regulation of rental prices, the stoppage of evictions, the creation of a VPO park or the stoppage of residential sales to foreign capital.

In reference to the excess of tourists, it is requested that Valencia be declared a stressed areathat tourist apartments be prohibited and that the hotel business be “strictly” regulated.

Likewise, they consider that “we must stop betting on tourism as an economic engine“, put an end to the promotion of the city as a tourist destination and stop the entry of cruise ships and the expansion of the port and airport.”

Those attending the demonstration displayed banners with the slogans “Housing is a right”, “València is not for sale” or “banking on the bench” and at the beginning of the march they rang the keys to their homes.

The PSPV-PSOE has defended the application of the Housing Law in the Valencian Country so that “stop preventing young people and families from accessing homes.”

In this same sense, the spokesperson for Compromís in the Consistory, Papi Robles, has asked the president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, to declare “this very night” the city of Valencia as a tense areaalthough she has been convinced that “she will not do it because she is on the side of the speculators.”