Let’s talk

Yesterday, pro-Palestine protesters successfully forced the cancellation of the final stage of the Vuelta a España, where an Israeli team had been competing. After weeks of coordinated disruption attempts across Spain, more than 100,000 demonstrators descended on Madrid, blockading the route using their bodies and fencing barriers. Riot police responded with tear gas and multiple clashes broke out between protesters and authorities.

In a quiet restaurant in Barrio Quintana, Annelis sits across from me filling out a survey on gender-based violence. Her chipped nails a silent witness to the relentless hours she’s spent scrubbing floors and bleaching bathrooms. When her employer recently complimented her manicure while backhandedly suggesting she must be earning too much – Annelis quietly corrected her. The truth is she painted her nails herself a few days ago, and already the polish is peeling, worn down by domestic labour invisible to most and often dismissed by those who benefit from it.

Tourists aren’t inherently bad, and they shouldn’t be told to go home. But after coordinated anti-tourism protests across Europe last weekend, it’s easy to feel uncertain. With headlines blaming visitors for everything from overcrowding to housing shortages, even the most conscious travellers may start to wonder if they’re no longer welcome. But this growing backlash, while rooted in real frustrations, doesn’t tell the whole story.

Carrying a paper copy of my gender-based violence survey, I visited the offices of Sedoac yesterday, in Orcasitas. I was there to meet Edith, who is a member of the first domestic workers association that has offered to help me with my survey.

Some of us were stranded on trains, trapped in lifts or stuck in traffic jams — but the emergency services never failed. At Atocha station, thousands endured what might have been the worst day of their year, while others managed to find small moments of joy: catching up on journaling, entertaining their kids, making the best of an unexpected end to their holiday in Madrid. Traffic lights were out, but cars didn't speed. Drivers slowed and pedestrians crossed in an unspoken agreement of safety.

Since Monday, you might have noticed we’ve been dealing with a growing rubbish crisis as bin collectors have gone on an indefinite strike.

Since Mame Mbaye’s death in 2018, a powerful vigil and march take place every year in his honour. Last night, the streets of Lavapiés echoed with drums and song, and the chants of protesters united behind a simple demand: respect for migrants’ human rights.

Han vendido tu casa a un fondo buitre que, de repente, quiere echarte. ¿Qué harías tú? Las vecinas de Tribulete 7 emprenden un camino de resistencia que las llevará a convertirse en un símbolo de lucha por el derecho a la vivienda en el barrio.  El documental muestra cómo se han ganado el apoyo de todo el barrio, resisitiendo de una manera inspiradora y nunca vista antes.

Your home has been sold to a vulture fund who suddenly wants you out. What would you do? This uplifting film follows the tenants of Tribulete 7 as they come together to fight back in ways never seen before in Madrid and, in the process, win the support of the entire neighbourhood of Lavapiés.

The day Michel* turned 18, he stopped being welcome in France where he’d been living for two years learning to be a plumber. Overnight, his rights changed. No longer a minor, he was told to leave the country.

Next Sunday, 9 June, is the EU elections. But why do they matter and how will they affect us on a local, regional, national and international level?

On Good Friday morning in Lavapiés, two young black men were filmed by a passerby being violently forced to the ground by police officers. One officer placed a man in a chokehold position while another officer beat his lower back until he was flat on the ground.

Spain, as per EU regulation, allows imports of the very foods it prohibits Spanish farmers from producing. Unable to compete with 'one rule for us, another rule for them' style deregulation, farmers are therefore forced to sell their produce at a fraction of their costs, and subsidies aren't enough to keep farms going.

Pan Bendito is a small pentagonal barrio in east Carabanchel, 6km from Sol. The name originates from the wheat fields on which it was built in 1963 to accommodate rural Spanish migrants who had arrived during Madrid’s industrial boom in the decades before. They’d previously been living in one of Madrid’s 30,000 shantytowns and vertical slums.