Europe Erupts: The Portuguese Dimension
The Rossio Square in central Lisbon is one of the Portuguese capital’s great attractions. Rebuilt by the Marques de Pombal after the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755 it has in recent years become the elegant hub of tourist activity.
But it was not always so. In 1964 when I was living in Lisbon I witnessed a major confrontation between thousands of demonstrators and the Riot and Secret police of the Salazar dictatorship. This weekend’s confrontation in the Rossio Square bought back memories of that earlier time. And in the same location.
On Sunday thousands clashed with the riot police who forcibly removed the tented encampment which has been set by young people demanding government action over soaring housing costs, and the long running Portuguese property crisis, where property prices have doubled since 2017, and the cost of renting new tenancies has doubled in the same period.
The cost of housing in Portugal increased by 147% between 2015 and 2025, compared with the 60.5% average in the European Union (EU). The average one-bedroom flat in Lisbon can cost 1, 500 euros a month. The minimum wage in Portugal is 920 euros a month. ($1 = 0.8898 euros). The situation has been aggravated by inflation of 3.6%, and rising fuel and food prices up 15% year on year, caused by the crisis in the Middle East.
The Portuguese government is proposing legislation to accelerate evictions and remove restrictions on rents for new tenancies, which has provoked the demonstrations. The riot police forcibly cleared the housing protesters on the Rossio Square at Dawn: 13 were arrested and dozens hurt. The recently elected Portuguese President, Antonio Jose Seguro, has convened a meeting of the Council of State to discuss the situation.
The Portuguese housing protests in Lisbon’s Rossio Square has deep Portuguese origins to be sure. In recent years Lisbon has been overwhelmed by tourists and foreign buyers of property. The “Baixa”, the area of downtown Lisbon, where the Rossio is located, is unrecognisable from what it was in 1964. And these Portuguese protests are also part of an Europe-wide wave of street protests, riots (and looting) by young people in France, Germany, Italy, Albania, and Spain, dissatisfied with their lack of opportunities, and an out-of-touch governing class.
Unlike in Lisbon in 1964 when I was in the Rossio Square in Lisbon as the riot police attacked the protesters, it is not an entrenched authoritarian government that is being confronted, but the weak leadership of European democracies, which appear, almost everywhere, to be seriously out of touch with the everyday concerns of struggling ordinary citizens. And one thing we can be sure about: The wave of protests is far from over.