The sun beats down on Max-Joseph-Platz in front of the opera, but whistles and posters create a heated atmosphere. Children and parents demonstrated on Sunday afternoon against the city of Munich and a little against the state of Bavaria because their daycare fees will rise drastically on September 1st. “Whoever is quiet loses,” Nicole Heldeisen, a mother herself who was affected, shouted from the improvised stage. “We stay loud.”
The families who came to the demonstration for fair daycare fees feel like the losers of the city’s reform to promote crèches, children’s places and after-school care places. After a defeat in court, Munich had to set up a new system, which many private institutions rejected as inadequate. They will stop receiving funding in the fall, which will cause the fees for parents to explode. On a cardboard sign on a stroller at the demonstration it is written that daycare fees have risen from 200 to 1,200 euros in just one year.
It can’t be the case that a place in a city daycare center is like “winning the lottery” and the rest have to see for themselves how they get along, said Mother Heldeisen on stage. “Equal opportunities for all children,” she shouted to parents and children, earning wild trills and applause.
The city points out that this is no longer legally possible and that at least 90 percent of the places are funded. Nicole Heldeisen doesn’t believe that. From their point of view, the city makes things too easy for itself. “We are more than ten percent,” she said, and they want to show that publicly again and again. Shortly before 4 p.m., parents and children set out on a demonstration with hundreds of participants through the city center.