Several thousand people are demonstrating this Saturday in the streets of Bayonne, to demand decent and fair access to housing, and to denounce “the harmful effects” of a real estate market that has become inaccessible for the inhabitants of the Basque Country.
The demonstrators, gathered at the call of the platform Se loger au pays, made up of 32 associations, unions and political parties, are demanding regulation of the local market and legislative changes and policies in favor of housing for all.
In ten years, the population of the Basque Country has increased by 9.6% with a significant increase, in parallel, in the number of second homes and seasonal rentals.
Each year, 3,000 newcomers settle there, mainly on the coastal fringe and its surroundings, while the price per m2 has increased by more than 35% in four years, with peaks of 8 to 10,000 euros per m2 in cities such as Biarritz or Saint-Jean-de-Luz.
In the crowd, banners with messages like tax the millionaires, not the tenants or too intrusive tourism, we want to be able to live at home, are displayed, on this day of the end of the winter break and European day for the right to housing.
In their sights, the proliferation of tourist accommodation, but also of second homes, which represent 21% of the housing stock in the area.
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The demonstrators demand in parallel a control of rents and an increased production of social housing, in the face of the current shortage.
In November 2021, a demonstration with a similar slogan had brought together between 6,500 and 8,000 people in Bayonne.
