The Prometheus International Press Squad (PIPS) is a roving elite band of commie travel writers who try to be at the front lines of global class struggle. This is their report from Portugal, where growing protests in and around the Portuguese State have led to militants raising the demand for a Communist Party at a European level.

On 23 September, an 87-year-old woman named Maricarmen Abascal was evicted from her home in Madrid, despite having lived there since she was 17.¹ She was paying €500 a month in rent, but her landlord, the property company Urbagestión, wanted to increase it by 430% to €2,650 a month — around €1,000 more than her entire monthly pension.

As a wave of protests in solidarity with Maricarmen spread across the borders in Spain, the Basque Country and Catalonia, the mood in Portugal started to change. On 30 September, the Portuguese right-wing coalition government approved a bill that weakens renters’ rights.² The 220 politicians representing the various right-wing parties in the Assembleia da República – Portugal’s unicameral parliament, including the ruling Partido Social Democrata, reportedly declared 1,039 properties between them. This is consistent with their politics. The right-wing parties have repeatedly sought to roll back the gains of the revolution enshrined in Portugal’s 1974 April Constitution, pushing deregulation in housing and labour law to boost the role of the market and, ultimately, the interests of property owners and capital.³ Its most recent attempts have been the “Pacote Laboral”, which sought to weaken Portuguese workers’ rights, “perpetuating low wages, legalising dismissals without just cause, normalising and extending precarious employment, deregulating and further lengthening working hours”.⁴

The first city to mobilise was Porto. A popular assembly voted to set up an encampment in Praça D. João on 10 October. Five days later, the police stormed the encampment at 3 am, demanding that the tents be taken down. The activists obliged, but as soon as the tents were out of the way, the riot police charged at the crowds, injuring 39 people, two of them seriously, including a disabled woman.⁵ The police claim there was resistance, but observers from the left-wing news outlet Bloco de Esquerda reported that this was false.⁶

Social media was instantly filled with rage, videos posted with hashtags like #Portugal and #expat flooded social media with people calling on everyone, including the “expats” to join the housing and cost-of-living demonstrations across the country, my own Instagram feed has been filled with emotive screenshots of Notes-app posts directed at digital nomads, telling them to get out on the streets and support the struggle, with the directive: “If you love Portugal and moved here because you loved how affordable life was, the people, the food, the sun and our beaches, then you need to show up when the very same people are telling you that we can’t live like this anymore.”

Immigration has almost doubled since 2021, with over 40% of those applying for Portuguese nationality last year being Israelis. The change has been huge; it is now normal to go into a cafe in Lisbon and only hear English speakers, with the prices in the cafes and bars being way over what the average Portuguese worker can afford. Just last week my wife and I walked into a coffee shop in Peniche (a small fishing town on the Silver Coast) where the owners looked lost when we placed our order in Portuguese. This isn’t an anti-immigrant argument; the state has incentivised this behaviour by offering golden visas⁷ to the rich and giving tax breaks⁸ to digital nomads, but it is a situation which is pushing Portuguese workers out of their own towns and replacing them with high rents and Airbnbs.

Portugal is going through a huge cost-of-living crisis. Rents in Lisbon are often advertised at prices well above the monthly minimum wage (€920 a month)⁹, the cost of a bottle of gas is almost double the price of one in Spain, and, like everywhere else, fuel prices are skyrocketing.¹⁰ In fact, 52% of workers aged 25–34 have to live at home with their parents because prices are too high.¹¹

The upsurge of anger meant that the pre-planned cost-of-living demonstrations called by the left-wing union confederation, the Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores Portugueses (CGTP), back in September suddenly swelled with new people, all impacted by these intersecting issues. The CGTP managed to defeat the government’s proposed labour package, the “Pacote Laboral”, by calling two general strikes, held on 11 November 2025 and 3 June 2026, and has been campaigning heavily on the cost of living since, with the unions’ demands being: a 35-hour working week, a significant increase in the minimum wage and pensions, and measures to curb the cost of living, such as price controls on the essentials of life.¹²

Usually, these typical A-to-B marches are made up of the most militant layers of trade union members, carrying their union flags, banners and centrally produced CGTP-branded placards. At the march we attended in Coimbra, these placards were far outnumbered by homemade ones. As far as A-to-B marches go, it was a good one, with higher turnout and a bigger revolutionary bloc than I saw in Lisbon at previous marches.

As we approached the old town in Coimbra, we were shown solidarity through encouragement and applause from shop workers and people waving from their windows. It was one of the better demonstrations I have been to; Coimbra isn’t as big a city as Lisbon or Porto, but the size of the march, the proliferation of homemade placards and the bigger revolutionary bloc felt like something new was in the air. When the housing bill was proposed, there wasn’t a mass movement calling for rent controls; the government has clearly overplayed their hand, and now the mobilisations are demanding more than the government sought to take away with the bill.

After the CGTP march in Lisbon, militants voted to set up a housing encampment in Rossio. Rossio sits at the heart of Lisbon’s commercial and tourist centre and was the site of the 2011 encampment inspired by Spain’s 15-M movement during the financial crisis. One of the encampment’s immediate demands is for the CGTP to coordinate with the Spanish unions to turn their general strike on 11 November into an Iberian-wide one. This encampment lasted three days before the police raided it, detaining 55 people and injuring two in the process. At the time of writing, the encampment is planning to regroup on the evening of 20 October.

The question now is: can these encampments last and transform the anger and upsurge activity, involvement and mobilisation into wider collective action? Will the CGTP follow their lead or try to contain it? Following the internal debates within the CGTP is hard. Whilst it is formally an organisation external to the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), the PCP is the dominant faction within it, and the party’s strict democratic centralism makes it hard for even members of the party to know what could be coming next.

The PCP is at a historic low in the Assembleia da República and may feel that it has nothing to lose and everything to gain by throwing its weight behind the encampments and protests. So far, it has backed them fully. Unlike the French Communist Party (PCF), which has criticised the destruction of public facilities, the General Secretary of the PCP, Paulo Raimundo, told the Observador, “Those who are protesting already face the daily violence of low wages, precarious work and the lack of housing.”¹³

On the surface, there appear to be no real disagreements over demands between the institutionalised left and the encampments. Both want price controls as an immediate measure to curb the cost of living, and both propose rent controls as a short-term solution to the housing crisis and the mass building of social housing as the long-term solution. But as the Police brutally suppress the encampments, the party-linked news website AbrilAbril has been posting about wins for the police union.¹⁴ Admittedly, it’s only a short piece reporting on the court case and the win for the police unions, but publishing this at a time when the Police are pursuing violence on behalf of the state, their superintendent, Carlos Bastos Leitão, makes calls for parliament to repeal the demonstration law in Portugal, is really poor.

At the moment, it is easier for the PCP and the CGTP to back the encampments at this stage, as at the time of writing no property damage has occurred; we should pay close attention to how those on the institutionalised left respond to the development of the struggle, supporting them when they support us and criticising them if they follow in the footsteps of the PCF. The choice now for the CGTP and the PCP is whether or not to back the encampments’ calls for Portugal to join the Spanish general strike and continue to defend them when the Police inevitably escalate the violence.

Over the border, in the Basque Country, the “Gazte Koordinadora Sozialista” called to “rebuild the Communist Party at a European level” during a meeting attended by over 4,000 people.¹⁵ This demand has been echoed on social media by members of the Spanish “Coordinadora Juvenil Socialista” and the Portuguese group “Colectivo Ruptura”. These groups are made up of predominantly younger militants who seek to rebuild a non-parliamentary communist party that seeks to “reconstruct the communist project”.¹⁶ Colectivo Ruptura is critical of the PCP’s strategy, arguing that the party has become institutionalised within the state, relying on petitions, parliamentary motions and elections to seek reforms within the existing system rather than seeking to abolish it. Despite there not being concrete evidence to support how these groups would align on their politics, or organising strategies, it would appear that the desire for a collaborative, internationalist European communist party is growing.¹⁷

The success of the last two general strikes in defeating the proposed labour package shows that the unionised section of the Portuguese working class is willing to withdraw its labour in defence of its rights. If this movement can combine with the growing militancy of the encampments, we may soon be able to dream not only of defence but also of attack. However, we need to be wary of overstating its size and victories. There is a debate amongst the left in Portugal about the scale and the size of the general strike, with the CGTP initially claiming 3 million workers withdrew their labour, and a report by Colectivo Ruptura arguing as little as 300,000 did.

The growing protest encampments and the potential general strike are a welcome upsurge in class activity, and Communists should throw themselves into activity to escalate and defend those who are putting their bodies on the line or removing their labour, but we shouldn’t mistake this for making false promises. To enact revolutionary change, we need to both rebuild the working-class power in the unions, and continue working to construct a mass, revolutionary communist party.

1. Alys Davies and Alba Morgade, “Spanish pensioner whose eviction sparked nationwide protests dies”, BBC News, 7 October 2026, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6e3x21ev9wwo ↩︎
2. Sergio Goncalves, ‘Portugal Parliament Backs Swifter Evictions, End of Rent Caps’, Reuters, 30 September 2026, https://www.reuters.com/world/portugal-parliament-backs-swifter-evictions-end-rent-caps-2026-09-30/ ↩︎
3. Jerónimo de Sousa, ‘Portugal tem futuro com a Constituição de Abril!’, speech at the public session ‘A Constituição da República: projecto de desenvolvimento e soberania nacional’, Lisbon, 2 April 2014, Partido Comunista Português https://www.pcp.pt/portugal-tem-futuro-com-constitui%C3%A7%C3%A3o-de-abril ↩︎
4. CGTP-IN, ‘Sobre a aprovação e o envio do Pacote Laboral para discussão na Assembleia da República’, 14 May 2026 https://www.cgtp.pt/informacao/comunicacao-sindical/22439-sobre-a-aprovacao-e-o-envio-do-pacote-laboral-para-discussao-na-assembleia-da-republica ↩︎
5. ‘Protestos no Porto. Manifestantes decidiram pernoitar na Praça D. João I mas sem tendas’, RTP Notícias, 15 October 2026 https://www.rtp.pt/noticias/pais/manifestantes-votam-pela-permanencia-e-pernoita-na-praca-d-joao-i_n1771976 ↩︎
6. ‘Carga policial às três da manhã desmantela acampada pela habitação no Porto. Movimento conta 37 feridos’, Esquerda.net, 15 October 2026 https://www.esquerda.net/artigo/carga-policial-tres-da-manha-desmantela-acampada-pela-habitacao-no-porto-movimento-conta-37 ↩︎
7. Catarina Demony and Patricia Vicente Rua, ‘Portugal to Use Golden Visa Scheme to Help Migrants, Build Affordable Homes’, Reuters, 4 June 2024 https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/portugal-use-golden-visa-scheme-help-migrants-build-affordable-homes-2024-06-04 ↩︎
8. Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira, ‘Non-Habitual Resident (NHR) Tax Regime’, Portal das Finanças, n.d. https://info.portaldasfinancas.gov.pt/en/tax-information/living-in-portugal/work-and-retirement/nhr-tax-regime/Pages/default.aspx ↩︎
9. Decreto-Lei n.º 139/2025, de 29 de dezembro, Diário da República, 1st ser., no. 249 (29 December 2025) https://diariodarepublica.pt/dr/detalhe/decreto-lei/139-2025-992879809. ↩︎
10. David Latona, ‘Truckers, Commuters Protest in Portugal against Soaring Fuel Prices’, Reuters, 25 September 2026 https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/truckers-commuters-protest-portugal-against-soaring-fuel-prices-2026-09-25 ↩︎
11. Eurofound, ‘Young People Aged 25–34 in Employment and Living in the Parental Home by EU Member State, 2022 (%)’, data item VRDAs, 20 May 2024 https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/en/surveys-and-data/data-catalogue/young-people-aged-25-34-employment-and-living-parental-home-eu-member-state-2022 ↩︎
12. CGTP-IN, ‘Resolução Manifestação Nacional’, 17 October 2026 https://www.cgtp.pt/cgtp-in/areas-de-accao/accao-reivindicativa/22844-resolucao-manifestacao-nacional ↩︎
13. Agência Lusa, ‘Raimundo critica “cambalhotas” do Chega e pede pressão para travar lei do arrendamento’, Observador, 19 October 2026, https://observador.pt/2026/10/19/raimundo-critica-cambalhotas-do-chega-e-pede-pressao-para-travar-lei-do-arrendamento/ ↩︎
14. ‘Supremo Tribunal Administrativo dá razão à ASPP sobre reposicionamento remuneratório’, AbrilAbril, 19 October 2026, https://www.abrilabril.pt/trabalho/supremo-tribunal-administrativo-da-razao-aspp-sobre-reposicionamento-remuneratorio ↩︎
15. Mikel Gisasola Axpe, ‘GKS fija la meta de “construir un Partido Comunista europeo” frente a más de 4.000 jóvenes en Elizondo’, El Salto, 12 October 2026, https://www.elsaltodiario.com/euskal-herria/gks-construir-partido-comunista-europeo-4000-jovenes-elizondo ↩︎
16. Coletivo Ruptura, Proposta política (2026) https://coletivoruptura.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/proposta-politica.pdf ↩︎
17. Mario Aguiriano, ‘¿A dónde va Francia?’, Contracultura, 20 October 2026, https://contracultura.cc/2026/10/20/a-donde-va-francia/ ↩︎