The EconomistOctober 12th 2019 Europe 55A
ntónio costaput on a brave face for
his speech after Portugal’s general elec-
tion. The prime minister’s centre-left So-
cialist Party (ps) won almost 37% of the vote
and 106 seats in parliament, 20 more than it
took four years ago. But that still left it ten
short of a majority.
“Voters want the current political sol-
ution to continue,” he told cheering sup-
porters in Lisbon in the early hours of Octo-
ber 7th. “This time with a stronger ps.”
Continuing the current solution means an-
other four years of a minority government
depending for its survival on the support of
the radical left.
This was not the solution Mr Costa,
something of a hero to Europe’s much-di-
minished centre-left, had campaigned for.
In a thinly disguised appeal for a majority
of his own, he repeatedly warned that Por-
tugal could find itself in a similar stalemate
to neighbouring Spain if the far left gained
more leverage over mainstream socialists.
Spain is heading for its fourth general elec-
tion in four years after fruitless coalition
talks between centre-left socialists and Po-
demos, a left-wing party.
In the event, voters neither gave Mr Cos-
ta the outright majority he wanted nor the
far left any greater influence. Instead they
punished the centre-right opposition, giv-
ing left-of-centre parties a combined ma-
jority of 27 in the 230-seat parliament, up
from eight previously. Mr Costa appears to
have read the public mood well in not cam-
paigning openly for an absolute majority;
too many Portuguese associate his party
with abuses of power and corruption. That
is likely to be little consolation, however,
as he faces weeks of delicate negotiations
to put together a second version of his pact
with the anti-capitalist Left Bloc and the
hardline Communist Party.
His task has been complicated by a
greater fragmentation of parliament, with
three new parties taking one seat each and
a small left-leaning environmentalist and
animal-rights group winning four, up from
one previously. Catarina Martins, the Left
Bloc’s leader, said Mr Costa could “choose
stability” by negotiating a government pro-
gramme with her party, or negotiate for its
support “budget by budget, year by year”.
The Bloc, which took 10% of the vote, re-
tained its 19 seats. The Communists, smart-
ing from the loss of five seats from their
previous tally of 17, have ruled out entering
into a second formal pact with the ps.
Renewinga pactwiththefarleftcould
provetrickyforMrCosta,however,asEu-
ropebracesfora globaldownturnamidta-
riffwarsandthefalloutfromBrexit.Hav-
ingcometoofficein 2015 vowingto“turn
thepageonausterity”,hehassincerecast
himselfasa championoffiscaldiscipline.
Afterenduringoneoftheworsteconomic
crisessincetheglobalfinancialcalamityof
2008,Portugalisnowgrowingrobustly.
Theleft-wingpartieswillpressforcon-
cessionsonlabourlaws,publicspending,
public-sectorpayandstatepensions.How-
ever,MrCostanowneedstostrikea deal
withonlyoneofthoseparties,ratherthan
bothofthem,asbefore,inordertosurvive
anyconfidencevoteorpassa billora bud-
get.Thepartiesontheleftthathad“madeit
theirgoaltopreventthepsfromwinning
anabsolutemajority”,MrCostasaid,“now
havea biggerresponsibilitytobringabout
a stableoutcome.” 7The Socialists fail to win a majority,
but will stay in power
Portugal
Hopes unfulfilled
T
he killingsthemselves were shock-
ing. On October 3rd four police officers
were knifed to death at Paris police head-
quarters by one of their colleagues. What
has emerged since is more sinister. The
perpetrator, who was shot dead at the
scene, was a suspected jihadist who had ac-
cess to classified police intelligence files.
France has been shaken by the revela-
tions. Mickaël Harpon was a 45-year-old
French computer technician from Marti-
nique, employed since 2003 at the intelli-
gence service within the Paris police head-
quarters. He enjoyed high-level security
clearance, which was renewed in 2008 and- His job gave him access to a mass of
intelligence data, including personal con-
tact details of police officers and of individ-
uals under surveillance, some of which
have subsequently been found on a usbkey
in his possession. The prosecutor has
opened an inquiry into an act of terrorism.
On the morning of the killings Harpon,
a convert to Islam, exchanged with his wife
33 text messages “of an exclusively reli-
gious nature, ending with Allahu akbar”,
said the prosecutor. He then left his office
to buy a kitchen knife and an oyster knife
in a nearby shop. Returning to work, he fa-
tally stabbed three victims in the office and
attacked two more on the staircase, one of
whom survived.
Arriving on the scene, Christophe Cas-
taner, the interior minister, declared that
Harpon had “never shown the slightest
warning sign” during the time he worked at
police headquarters. He had no criminal
record, nor was there any sign of concern
about him in his work files. It emerges,
however, that colleagues were worried.
Harpon had voiced approval of the Charlie
Hebdoterrorist attacks in Paris in 2015.
More recently he adopted traditional dress
to go to mosque and refused to shake the
hands of female colleagues. He had con-
tacts, said the prosecutor, with Salafists, a
radical Islamist movement. “It is very seri-
ous, scary,” says François Heisbourg of the
Foundation for Strategic Research. “There
is no precedent for this: a jihadi mole at the
heart of an intelligence service whose basic
job was to keep tabs on terrorists.”
How could such an individual have
gone undetected? Battered by bloody terro-
rist attacks in 2015 and 2016, France has put
in place a system designed to detect radi-
calised people, which was expanded last
year. It includes a grid of warning signs,
such as a change in dress or behaviour,
which are supposed to trigger an alert. The
system yields some success. According to a
parliamentary report in June, 12,809 people
are on a watch list as a result. Such lists are
used to help screen recruits to sensitive
public services. In 2018, of the 10,840 que-
ries concerning applicants to the police
force forwarded to the national security in-
quiry service, five were judged proble-
matic. It also keeps watch on employees.
There are currently around 30 cases con-
cerning suspected radicalisation within
the police force and gendarmerie.
Such procedures are not fail-safe. Col-
leagues who voiced concerns about Har-
pon declined to submit written com-
plaints. It is not clear why. A culture of
solidarity? A fear of stigmatising Harpon,
who was partially deaf? Mr Castaner this
week recognised “dysfunctions” in the sys-
tem. An inquiry is under way. Opposition
leaders called on him to resign. The affair
leaves many questions unanswered—and a
fresh sense of vulnerability in France. 7
PARIS
Alarming details emerge about a
bloody killingFranceAn enemy within