France, Oct. 9 -- Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Monday called a snap election for 29 November, after parliament rejected housing relief measures proposed by his minority government.

It came after tens of thousands of protesters marched in Madrid and other cities to demand affordable housing, galvanised by the forcible eviction of an elderly woman, who died in hospital this week.

Maricarmen Abascal, 87, was evicted on a stretcher on 23 September after the real estate firm that owned her Madrid apartment drastically hiked the rent.

By the time she died on Wednesday, she had become the symbol of a crisis that cuts across Spanish society - young and old, renters and buyers, workers and pensioners.

The uproar at her eviction trig...