European trade union coordinated protests cost of living November 20-22, Digi Mart USA News (Paris): Trade unions and housing rights groups from several European countries have called for coordinated protests from November 20 to 22 against the rising cost of living. Representatives of organizations from Spain, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Greece and Belgium met in Paris and said they hope to bring “millions” of people into the streets.
The call comes amid what the organizers describe as a “crucial moment” of purchasing-power pressure across Europe. Carme Arcarazo, spokesperson for the Spanish Confederation of Tenants’ Unions, which initiated the meeting, said the groups had decided to coordinate to move forward together.
Their main demands concern a “guarantee of the right to housing” and “control of the prices of housing, food and energy.” They also seek broader social and political changes, including higher wages and pensions.
Organizers call for guaranteed public services, including education, health care and public housing, and a “right to work” without “excluding migrants.” They also call for taxing the wealthy, an end to rearmament policies and an end to the development of fossil fuels. Benjamin Ball, a member of the yellow vest movement coordination, said that “by the millions” people would take to the streets to show that peoples, not billionaires, should lead.
The French trade unions CGT and Solidaires and the housing association Droit au logement (DAL) also support the call. At the close of the meeting at DAL’s modest premises in Paris, the European organizations denounced a “runaway rise in the cost of living” and a lack of measures by governments.
In Spain, the eviction in September of Maricarmen Abascal, an 87-year-old retiree from Madrid who died a few days later, sparked a large wave of protests and returned the housing crisis to the center of public debate. The situation prompted Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, a Socialist, to call early legislative elections for November 29.
The main Spanish unions have called a general strike for November 11 to advance their demands on housing and wages before the elections.
Housing protests have also spread elsewhere. In October, encampments appeared in the Portuguese cities of Lisbon and Porto.
In France, high school students launched a mobilization demanding more resources for education and denouncing the Parcoursup higher-education placement system, followed by cost-of-living protests that also involved unions and yellow vest activists.
November 20 will also see a “youth strike” in twenty countries, coordinated by a Portuguese student association against fossil fuels. The movement of French high school students has resonated in other European countries.
In Greece, more than 10,000 people demonstrated in several cities, some carrying banners in Greek and French reading “Hope is in the struggle of the peoples.”
On Saturday, several hundred thousand people marched in France. In Germany, tens of thousands of young people took to the streets.
The day before, hundreds of thousands of Italians also demonstrated. In Italy, the movement brings together students, port workers, truck drivers and farmers, and Chiara Capretti of the USB union said on Tuesday that “the government is not responding to anyone,” referring to a general strike called on October 30.
Housing is a central demand of protesters in several countries because it is at the heart of cost-of-living problems. In the European Union, housing prices rose by more than 60% between 2010 and 2025, and rents rose by about 29%.
In 2024, more than 16.5 million European households spent over 40% of their income on housing, the threshold known as excessive housing cost burden, representing 8.2% of EU households.
