Portugal's Housing Protests Met With Rubber Bullets and Rent Deregulation

More than 160 people have been injured — some shot in the face with rubber bullets — and 99 arrested in Lisbon and Porto since housing protests began on 14 October, according to Público. Almost a month on, the encampments show no sign of disappearing, and the government's answer is legislation that hands landlords more power, not less.

The scale of the crisis explains the crowds. Since 2015, house prices have risen 169% nationwide — 180% in Porto and 186% in Lisbon — while wages have failed to keep pace. Portugal now has the widest gap between house prices and income in the entire EU, according to the piece by documentary film-maker and journalist Ana Naomi de Sousa.

What does this change for Portugal's professional class? Plenty. A crisis once confined to low-income and racialised communities now traps the middle classes too. At the protest camps, de Sousa met thirtysomething professionals still living with their parents, separated couples forced to share a roof, and families weighing cramped city housing against moving far from jobs and schools. The crowds include architects, waiting staff, graphic designers, master's students and young mothers.

Even Storm Charles — which cancelled flights, closed schools and knocked a full day off Lisbon's Web Summit — didn't clear the camps. Protesters stayed out through the weather, joined by movements from both cities that have merged their campaigns.

How did the government respond?

With what de Sousa calls a mix of "the farcical to the outright repressive". Prime Minister Luís Montenegro called the demonstrations "selfish" and suggested they were a "foreign import" — a claim protesters have answered by noting he owns at least six properties across Portugal plus extensive land. Lisbon's mayor, Carlos Moedas, complained the protests threatened a German-style Christmas market.

The police reaction has drawn formal condemnation. More than 200 lawyers have signed a letter alleging disproportionate force and illegal measures, demanding an inquiry. Amnesty International accused police of "beatings and excessive force … causing physical harm and hospitalisations", adding: "This response is a choice. It can – and must – be stopped by the Portuguese authorities." Videos show officers attacking protesters as they flee, including peaceful demonstrators attacked while sleeping.

On 1 November, police announced €60 fines for motorists honking in support of protesters — then withdrew the measure within 24 hours. Moedas, meanwhile, claimed cleaning graffiti from Rossio square cost €138,000 (£115,000), a figure protesters dispute.

Why is the market this broken?

The roots run back to the 2011 Troika bailout — the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF — after Portugal's financial crisis. Bailout conditions capped public spending, so the centre-right government of the day chased private and foreign capital for urban development. Rental laws were relaxed in landlords' favour, and speculation followed.

A tourist boom compounded it. Short-term lets through platforms like Airbnb have pushed rents and prices up across dozens of Lisbon and Porto neighbourhoods, forcing communities out. Unlike Spain, Germany and the UK — which have all recently strengthened renters' rights — Portugal's centre-right government is now moving the opposite way, drafting laws to let landlords raise rents faster, demand larger deposits and evict tenants more quickly.

What's the political logic?

Montenegro's Social Democratic party — rightwing despite its name — faces a serious challenge from the far-right Chega party. It's courting voters with aggressive rhetoric on policing and immigration, and elected officials have spent the month trying to discredit and criminalise protesters rather than concede anything.

The street hasn't missed the echo. Chants of "Cheira a ditadura" — "it reeks of dictatorship" — and "we are all anti-fascists" reference Portugal's imperial dictatorship of 1926-1974, still in living memory for many. Yet the camps themselves have stayed defiantly gentle: a "people's university", a free canteen, camp mothers, clowns, singalongs, and performances from pop singers Mayra Andrade and Ana Moura. De Sousa notes the most provocative act of the encampment was a giant spooning sleepover — a sharp contrast to burned cars in Paris and barricades in Barcelona.

Protests over housing have recurred for five years and fallen on deaf ears. With no concessions on the table and rents still climbing, the standoff in Lisbon and Porto looks set to run deeper into winter — and de Sousa's conclusion is blunt: the crisis "isn't going anywhere without radical interventions".