Thousands of demonstrators filled the streets of Lisbon and Porto on Saturday to voice their frustration over the escalating cost of living and soaring housing prices. The protests, which were also scheduled to take place in Aveiro, Braga, and Funchal, were organized by a collective known as the "You can't live like this anymore" platform.
Participants at the demonstrations carried signs and chanted slogans highlighting the disparity between their wages and the rising costs of basic necessities. Among the messages displayed on placards were pleas such as "I want to move out of my parents' house before I'm 50" and "this salary isn't enough to live on." In Porto, approximately 1,500 people reportedly joined the march, with some holding signs that explicitly stated, "let’s do it like they do in Spain."
The movement appears to be drawing inspiration from recent housing-related protests in Spain, which gained significant momentum following the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal. Teresa Fonseca, a participant in the Lisbon march, explained to the Lusa news agency that she decided to join the protest after seeing it promoted on Instagram. "I saw on Instagram that this protest was going to take place, so I came. Enough is enough. This country is getting worse and worse, and now we need to leave our homes and take to the streets to make our voices heard, just as the Spanish did," she stated.
An Instagram account linked to the protest organizers noted that citizens have been "squeezed by rising house prices and the cost of living" for years. The group highlighted the daily struggle of working to keep up with fuel prices and essential expenses to avoid losing their homes, declaring, "We can’t go on living like this!"
Others lifted placards bearing slogans such as "I want to move out of my parents' house before I'm 50."
In Spain, Maricarmen's case served as a launch pad for further demonstrations against the country's housing crisis and heaped pressure on Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's government.
