Evicted 87-year-old Spanish pensioner to return home after deal

A Madrid pensioner whose eviction sparked nationwide protests that have piled pressure on the government to resolve Spain's housing crisis can return home after a deal with the property's owners, her lawyer said on Monday. Unaffordable housing has been a running sore for years in Spain, but the outcry over last Wednesday's eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal thrust the crisis to the forefront of the political debate. Demonstrators have set up roughly 100 tents in Madrid's emblematic Puerta del Sol square since Saturday night, while tens of thousands of people have protested across the country. "If this agreement we have reached is signed, it will obviously be a better and happier outcome for everyone," Abascal's lawyer Beatriz Duro told reporters, calling it "a result of the social mobilisation". "Hopefully this agreement, this different way of ending this type of situation, which unfortunately are experienced every day in this country, helps to change the paradigm when it comes to housing in general," Duro said. Abascal, who uses a wheelchair, was removed on a stretcher from the Madrid home where she had lived for 70 years and became a symbol of the protest against runaway ...