Germany: Rent a Demonstrator for your Political Protest

If your shouting days are through – Fred Kasulzke shouts for you!

That’s how German/French songwriter and singer Reinhard Mey was singing in the 70s about the business idea of renting people for demonstrations and riots.

Seemingly these days claqueurs are getting popular again in Germany particularly with the bureaucrats and other stakeholders in the state backed German health system.

While the German government is trying to sell the drastic cuts in the health system as health reforming and there would be much to demonstrate for - during summer 2006 ten thousands of MDs went on strike for months and huge demonstrations took place - it might be understandable that nobody wanted to speak up in public for the benefices of the Apparatchiks and functionaries of the system.

So during December they just hired a group of about 150 students and others to demonstrate for their case. While denials of wrongdoing or denial of hiring are passed around through the press we now finally have an explanation why cost are exploding in the German health system. This kind of event management might not come cheap.

Online links:
Press article (in German)
Online job / rental agency with images if you want to check how your future demonstrators will look like (currently 319 people available as demonstrators).