Prohens approaches an evicted woman at Parliament: "They are using you"

PalmaIn tears, an evicted woman confronted the President of the Government, Marga Prohens, this Tuesday after the Government control session in Parliament. It is 65-year-old Pilar López, who already appeared at City Hall to denounce her situation: having been evicted by an investment fund after 40 years of contributions and despite having a spinal cord injury. The president approached her to speak, but she lashed out at the PSIB deputy who was accompanying her and, according to the woman's account, warned her: "They are using you." She, in turn, told her: "I voted for you."

Housing has been the central topic of the control session. Representatives from all left-wing parties (PSIB, MÉS per Mallorca, Més per Menorca, and Unides Podem) have demanded measures from the Government, while Vox has blamed immigration for the price crisis. At the end of the question period, the PSIB spokesperson, Iago Negueruela, asked the president who has more rights: "the citizens or the vulture funds?". He also demanded that she respond while looking at López, a Palma resident who, after being evicted, had to spend the summer living in her car, and this Tuesday followed the session from the public gallery, invited by the PAH. "You have no empathy and you choose the vulture funds, you sit with them and make deals with them, but never with their victims," snapped Negueruela.

At that moment, Prohens did not address the issue and said that "evictions are regrettable and occur because the laws" of the PSOE —in reference to the state urban leasing law— "allow it". "You talk about vulture funds because it sounds very good and you instrumentalize the pain of any person, because you have no shame," she continued, while Negueruela shouted at her: "Look at her, look at her".

When the control session ended, Prohens approached the public to speak with López, who burst into tears. The two embraced while socialist Omar Lamin, who was trying to help the woman leave the chamber, took her by the arm and snapped at Prohens: "You have no shame".

In statements upon leaving the chamber, López explained the episode to the media. "She didn't want to look at me, and she took advantage of the end of the break to come toward me when I was leaving with a person who was helping me due to my reduced mobility," she asserted. "She came up to me and said: 'Don't let yourself be used, don't let them use you'," she continued. López, who already gave her testimony at Cort, insisted that she does not feel used "by anyone": "I am free, I am 65 years old, I have a lot of baggage, and no one manipulates me". In the same vein, she added that the PP Government "has disappointed her" and "the current administrations" have "abandoned" her.

López urged the parties to "walk the streets" to see that Palma "is not just yachts and housing developments," but also "working people who live under tarps". "They are not lazy, they are working people, and they are Spanish: hospitality workers, taxi drivers, who need affordable housing," she declared.