Tuesday evening, October 20, the Portuguese capital was the scene of a new mobilization against the housing crisis and the high cost of living.
This anger is echoed in France, where demonstrations against the high cost of living regularly highlight the prices of food, fuel or energy.
Housing constitutes the main driver of this mobilization, while the Portuguese protest is directly inspired by that taking place in Spain.
A movement which echoes the demonstrations in Spain and concerns about purchasing power in France.
The weight of housing thus helps to explain why a drop in inflation or a stabilization of the prices of certain products does not necessarily translate into a feeling of improvement in purchasing power.
Rents are also rising sharply, particularly for people looking for new housing.
However, housing constitutes one of the main items of household expenditure.
There too, the demonstrators denounce the soaring rents and the difficulties of access to housing.
In Portugal, purchase prices of real estate increased by 124% between 2015 and 2024, according to Eurostat data.
In the second quarter of 2026, rents from new contracts increased by 10.2% year-on-year, according to the Portuguese National Institute of Statistics (INE).