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Spain's general strike reaches rail stations, shops and television studios

A nationwide video account follows transport disruption and rain-soaked marches before nighttime clashes in Madrid and Barcelona.

Channel: EL PAÍS ·

SpainStory of November 12, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? One of EL PAÍS's most watched videos since yesterday, with 148,721 views.

EL PAÍS: A Spanish daily newspaper published since 1976, owned by the PRISA group. 3.4M subscribers and 2.5B views.

Así se vivieron las 24 horas de HUELGA GENERAL en España | EL PAÍS

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Shutters come down on Madrid's Gran Vía, a picket enters a live television studio, and Barcelona-Sants station displays out-of-service signs. Spain's EL PAÍS follows the November 11 general strike beyond the mass march in the capital, showing how the stoppage reached transport, commerce and broadcasting.

The report, titled "Así se vivieron las 24 horas de HUELGA GENERAL en España | EL PAÍS" (How Spain's 24-hour general strike unfolded), describes it as the country's first general strike in 14 years. Demonstrators demanded better access to housing and higher wages, with chants directed against property speculation and landlords.

The sequence begins with overnight pickets outside Mercamadrid, the capital's wholesale food market, and confrontations with police. Later, pickets on Gran Vía get shops to lower their metal shutters. Footage shows National Police officers charging and restraining demonstrators.

Content creator María Barrier describes being sprayed directly in the eyes, ear and airways with pepper spray. Singer and activist Samantha Hudson says they were at the front of the demonstration without using violence.

The disruption also reaches television: a banner-carrying picket enters an RTVE live programme, while a separate sequence shows Canal Sur Televisión's broadcast going black. Rain-soaked marches follow in Castile and León, Extremadura and Madrid's Plaza de Cibeles.

EL PAÍS reports that the central government's delegation put Madrid's attendance at 120,000. The major unions UGT and CC OO called participation stronger than expected; employers' organisations called the strike a failure and put average participation below five percent. Those are competing assessments, not a shared measure of its reach.

The report says rail services and hundreds of flights were cancelled, and at least 61 people were detained across several cities. Its closing footage shows broken shop windows and burning barricades in Barcelona, followed by nighttime confrontations, pyrotechnics and police charges in Madrid.