Ten years after Spain’s indignados protests

ON MAY 15TH 2011PP some 20,000 mainly young, middle-class Spaniards occupied the Puerta del Sol, in the heart of Madrid, angry at austerity and the sense of entitlement among politicians and bankers. Organised through social media and calling themselves (“the indignant ones”), it was a new kind of protest movement, one that would be swiftly copied elsewhere, notably by Occupy Wall Street and Occupy London later that year.Initially enjoying broad public support, the shook Spain to the core. Within three years they helped to spawn two new national political parties, Podemos on the left and Ciudadanos on the centre-right. In 2015 these parties grabbed 34% of the vote between them. A stable political system long based on the Socialists and the conservative People’s Party () fragmented. The result has been four general elections in the past six years, none of which has produced a majority government.