Thousands of people demonstrating against a prolonged and deepening housing crisis gathered outside Portugal’s Parliament in Lisbon on Tuesday, after police in previous days used batons and dogs to break up similar protests in the capital’s main downtown squares.

Protests in recent weeks took their cue from demonstrations that began in neighboring Spain last month over similar complaints about unaffordable housing. Wide social unrest in the streets also has erupted elsewhere across Europe this autumn.

Portuguese President António José Seguro, whose role is mostly ceremonial but who wields political influence, has convened a Council of State, an advisory body, for a meeting next week to discuss the protests in Portugal.

Several thousand mostly young people apparently in their 20s and 30s gathered outside the Republican Assembly, Portugal's Parliament, chanting, singing and banging drums, while inside the building lawmakers debated the center-right government’s spending plans for next year.

“We’re fighting…