The contract killing scandal rocking France’s MI6 - The Sunday Story

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Story – "The contract killing scandal rocking France’s MI6"
Published: April 5, 2026
Host: Rosie Wright
Guest: Adam Sage, Times Paris correspondent

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Overview

This episode delves into a scandal shaking the French intelligence world, centered on a bizarre and unsettling “contract killing” plot. The tale involves a network of disillusioned intelligence guards, secretive Freemason lodges, illusion, and murder for hire—all culminating in a landmark Paris trial. The story explores themes of delusion, ambition, deception, and the troubling capacity for violence among those on the fringes of power.

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Main Discussion Points & Timeline

1. Discovery of the Plot

(00:49–04:58)

• Incident at the Nursery School:
  • The scandal unravels when a father notices two men in a car, dressed in black hoods and gloves on a hot day, outside his child’s nursery.
  • He alerts the police, who discover weapons and hear an unbelievable story: the men claim they’re on a state-sanctioned mission to kill a Mossad agent for France’s MI6 equivalent, the DGSE.
  • Quote: “They said that they were acting on behalf of the DGSC...on a mission to neutralize a Mossad agent. You can imagine the French police officers...were pretty incredulous.” – Adam Sage (03:22)

2. The Would-Be Spies: Bourdin and Hainault

(04:58–07:29)

• Who Were They Really?
  • Pierre Bourdin and Carl Hainault are low-level guards at a French MI6 base, serving as sentries rather than covert operatives.
  • Bourdin is described in court as a “mythomaniac”—someone obsessed with the spy lifestyle and prone to grandiose delusions.
  • Both aspired to be undercover agents and eagerly accepted a supposed covert assignment they believed was the opportunity of a lifetime.
  • Quote: “He not only dreamt of being a glamorous James Bond type figure, but then he told his sister-in-law...that's what he was. He's lying to other people...possibly lying to himself.” – Adam Sage (06:26)

3. Larger Conspiracy: Freemasonry and the Hit Squad Network

(08:36–12:16)

• Masonic Lodge Connections
  • The roots of the plot trace back to a Paris Masonic lodge, where ex-journalist Frédéric Vaglio and ex-intelligence operative Daniel Beaulieu hatched an illegal “enterprise”: settling business or political disputes through intimidation and violence.
  • The operation escalated from petty harassment (dead rats in gardens) to arson, then to attempted murder and murder.
  • Their methods involved recruiting those on the fringes of the intelligence community or those desperate to become spies, convincing them their assignments were real clandestine missions.
  • Quote: “Their modus operandi was by recruiting people...on the fringes of the spy agencies, or at least who dreamt of being spies, and convincing them...the missions...were genuine undercover spy agency missions.” – Adam Sage (09:35)

4. The Middleman: Sebastian Leroy

(10:42–12:23)

• Background
  • Leroy, a failed MI6 applicant turned private security agent, acts as intermediary, delivering “missions” to aspiring operatives.
  • The key trial question: Did Leroy and others believe these were genuine state operations or were they motivated purely by money?

5. The “Mossad Agent” Target and Motive

(14:53–18:05)

• The Intended Victim: Marielle Ndini
  • Ndini, a Paris-region businesswoman and local head of a coaches’ union, has no intelligence connections.
  • She was targeted after a rival Freemason business coach, threatened by new regulations, asked the network to “sort out” his problem—leading to her being falsely labeled a Mossad agent and marked for death.
  • Quote: “She’d never been to Israel. She has no connections with Israel...no connections with any form of intelligence agency whatsoever.” – Adam Sage (15:19)
  • Ndini, traumatized and forced to hire security, eventually moved away to rebuild her life.
  • Quote: “There was absolutely nothing in her life to explain it rationally at all...her life has been totally transformed because of this.” – Adam Sage (18:05)

6. Uncovering the Wider Web

(19:34–22:30)

• Other Violent Acts
  • Beyond the attempted hit on Ndini, members of the network carried out additional attacks, including:
    • The murder of a Corsican rally driver, Pasquale, who was kidnapped and killed over unpaid debts tied to further Masonic lodge connections.
    • Attempts to “sort out” union disputes for employers via violence, sometimes using chilling phrases like, “I can put your rival from a wheelchair to a coffin, depending on how much you have to pay.”
  • Quote: “It spun out from there...involved beating them up, setting fire to their houses...and it escalated into murder.” – Adam Sage (21:42)

7. The Police Investigation and The Ongoing Trial

(22:30–25:10)

• Breaking Secrets
  • Police unraveled this secretive network by tracking overlapping involvement across incidents; 22 defendants are now on trial.
  • Prosecutors and the police face the perennial challenge of extracting information from secretive Freemason circles, but the scale and breadth of the crimes made some facts impossible to hide.
  • The trial involves not just the “field” operatives, but masterminds, intermediaries, clients, and rivals-turned-customers.
  • Quote: “The basic facts of the case don’t seem to be disputed...there were contracts put on the head of quite a number of people either to kill them or to inflict violence on them.” – Adam Sage (23:42)

8. Defendants’ Pleas and the Complexity of Culpability

(25:10–27:01)

• Legal Strategies
  • All parties plead not guilty.
  • The central defense: “We thought this was an official intelligence mission for the French state.”
  • Prosecution asserts this is merely a cover for contract killing motivated by money.
  • Each tier of the network claims manipulation by someone higher up, obfuscating true responsibility.
  • Quote: “Pretty much all the defendants...their defense is that they were somehow manipulated or under the influence of someone else.” – Adam Sage (27:01)

9. Implications for French Intelligence

(28:06–30:14)

• Reputation and Security Concerns
  • The case deeply embarrasses French security services.
  • Senior officers reportedly knew about the sentries’ unsuitability—raising grave doubts about vetting and oversight.
  • French intelligence already faces criticism for other high-profile failures, including missing Russia’s Ukraine invasion and coups in West Africa.
  • Quote: “It's a very embarrassing case for...French MI6...It comes at a time when they're already under significant pressure.” – Adam Sage (28:23)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On delusion and desperation:
  “He not only dreamt of being a glamorous James Bond type figure...he's lying to other people...possibly lying to himself.” – Adam Sage (06:26)

• On the absurdity of the targeting:
  “She’d never been to Israel...no connections with any form of intelligence agency whatsoever.” – Adam Sage (15:19)

• On escalation within the Masonic network:
  “I can put your rival from a wheelchair to a coffin, depending on how much you have to pay.” – Adam Sage (21:16)

• On trial complexity:
  “Pretty much all the defendants...their defense is that they were somehow manipulated or under the influence of someone else.” – Adam Sage (27:01)

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Key Segments & Timestamps

• [02:59] Plot discovered by chance outside Paris nursery
• [05:05] Introduction to the would-be spies, Bourdin and Hainault
• [08:36] Masonic lodge and the criminal business model
• [10:42] Role of Sebastian Leroy
• [14:53] Identity of the intended victim, Marielle Ndini
• [19:34] Discovery of murder and broader crimes
• [22:30] How police cracked the Freemason-linked network
• [25:10] Ongoing trial and complex defense strategies
• [28:23] Fallout for French intelligence agencies

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Episode Tone

The discussion is serious and at times incredulous, balancing the darkly comic aspirations of the would-be spies against the horrifying reality of contract killings. Both Wright and Sage maintain a crisp, journalistic clarity, prioritizing facts and highlighting the surreal and troubling nature of the case while conveying the psychological shock of those targeted and the institutional embarrassment now faced by French agencies.

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For more details or to read Adam Sage’s full report, visit thetimes.com.

Transcript

[Podcast Sponsor/Host]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. From globalization to innovation sustainability to market volatility, there's always more than one side to a story. Explore different perspectives on today's most important business and economic issues with the Flipside podcast from Barclays Investment Bank. Hear two research analysts in a lively debate and get insights from every angle. To further inform your view, listen to the Flipside on your favorite platform.

[Rosie Wright]

From the Times and the Sunday Times. This is the story on Sunday. I'm Rosie Wright. A scandal is rocking the heart of France's intelligence world. Two men, guards at the country's equivalent of MI6, were dreaming of the world of James Bond with high stakes undercover missions. Instead, they found themselves on routine duty, pretty bored. So when a top secret assignment came their way, sanctioned, they were told at the highest levels of the French state. It felt like everything they'd be waiting for. Track down a target and kill them. The alleged hit, an operative link to Mossad, the stuff of movies. It sounded like the real deal. The trouble is, it wasn't. What followed was something altogether more unusual and far more troubling. A story involving false identities, shadowy networks, even links to Freemasonry. And at its center, a contract killing that appears to have been built on illusion. And it's all ended up this week in a Paris criminal court. The story today, the contract killing scandal rocking France's MI6.

[Adam Sage]

It really started with a father who dropped his daughter off at nursery school. And after dropping her off, he noticed this Renault Cleo sitting in the street with two men in it, dressed very strangely. They had black hoods on, gloves and thick black coats, which was strange because it was a hot day in Paris in the autumn.

[Rosie Wright]

That's Adam Sage, the Times Paris correspondent.

[Adam Sage]

He thought it was suspicious and he called the police. He was actually worried that maybe they were targeting in some way the nursery school that he docked off his daughter at. The police went to check it out, found the men sitting in the Renault Clio, as he'd said, took them into the police station for questioning, found guns on them, and the men came up with this story that appeared absolutely incredible. They said that they were acting on behalf of the DGSC, which is the French equivalent of MI6, on a mission to neutralize a Mossad agent. You can imagine the French police officers who'd arrested them were pretty incredulous, really. The two men in Renault Cleo, they said that they worked at a base in the Loire de Barthement, which is south of Paris, which is effectively a French MI6 base, where agents are trained to go undercover. I mean, when they learned how to go undercover missions, they went to the base of police officers who were checking this out. They asked about it, and the senior officers there, they said, yeah, we know these guys, I mean, we're aware of them, but they're absolutely not undercover agents. They absolutely weren't on a mission for us. And in fact, they're not undercover operatives at all. They're just sentries, effectively at the base.

[Rosie Wright]

Let's wind back, please. Could you introduce us, then, to these two Frenchmen sat in that car? Who are they?

[Adam Sage]

Well, there's Pierre Bourdin and Carl Hainault, who are members of the French MI6, but at a very, very low level, effectively gatekeepers, really, who dreamt of higher things. And Bourdin, having entered the agency, had several times tried to get taken on as an undercover agent, as an operative, to go out part of what the agency calls its Action Unit. I don't know if anyone has seen Le Bureau, the French spy series, but you see them going out undercover under false identities there. Well, that's what he dreamt of doing, but that's absolutely what he wasn't doing. And according to senior officers there, that's. He wasn't apt to do it. He was actually in the court case that came about, started this week, described as a mythomaniac, his colleagues, has a similar sort of profile, someone at a low level who dreamt of being at a higher level and who, when contacted by another person who would come to later to say, would you like to join this covert mission to eliminate a Mossad agent in France? Thought, this is my great chance, I'm going to do it. Or at least that's what he's been telling investigators in the court.

[Rosie Wright]

So what was the work they were kind of doing? It wasn't sort of glamorous, James Bond esque.

[Adam Sage]

They wanted to be James Bonds. Absolutely. I mean, that was their aim. And indeed, it came to light in court this week that Bourdin, the sentry, the lowly sentry, I mean, he was effectively, he was in charge of the people on the gate. I mean, you know, he'd let you in or he wouldn't let you in, and that was it. He said his job was sitting in A little room looking at a CCTV screen to see who's coming up. I mean, it was about as unglamorous and un James Bond as you can get. He not only dreamt of being a glamorous James Bond time figure, but then he told his sister in law, who came out in court this week, that that's what he was. I mean, he said, you know, this is what I'm doing there. I'm you a top undercover agent. He's lying to other people, that that's what he was as well. And possibly lying to himself.

[Rosie Wright]

I mean, it almost sounds sort of humorous. But then you remember the gravity of how serious this story became. It sounds as though, Adam, there was this sort of psychological disconnect between what they wanted the job to be and had a glimpse of it and the practical, mundane reality of what they were actually doing.

[Adam Sage]

Yes, absolutely. I mean, I mean the daily reality was opening and closing a gate and looking at CCTV screens. What they wanted it to be was going around the world undertaking missions that you'd see in films. And then in 2020, they were contacted by someone who they thought was acting on behalf of the intelligence agency to say, would you like to take part in a clandestine mission? Don't tell anyone about it, it's top secret, it's dangerous, but it's in the interest of the French state. And both of them said yes, which was how they came to be sitting in this Renault Clio car outside a flat in a Paris suburb.

[Rosie Wright]

So they're feeling sort of overlooked, underutilized, and this opportunity, it seems, emerges. So how does that happen?

[Adam Sage]

We have to wind back a bit to a few years earlier, to the workings of a Masonic lodge in the Paris region. And in the heart of this lodge there are two people at the outset. One is Frederic Vaglio, who's a former journalism turned businessman who has a business in economic intelligence. And Daniel Bollea. Bolia is a former intelligence agency operative. From a genuine one. Aglio listened to Bolia's stories of being an intelligence agency unit operative. Somehow in their conversations, this is what prosecutors allege anyway, they dreamt up the idea of setting up some kind of illegal business that involved settling commercial and sometimes political disputes for friends, acquaintances, people in the same Masonic lodge or people who knew them through violence. I mean, it started on quite a low level, recruiting people to throw dead rats into the garden of a businessman who'd refused a contract for someone who they were working for that was for sort of €3,000. It moved up from there to Setting fire to the house of a property developer for €10,000. It graduated up from there to murder and attempted murder. Essentially, how they worked, their modus operandi was by recruiting people who were on the fringes of the spy agencies, or at least who dreamt of being spies, and convincing them again. This is what prosecutors alleged, that somehow the missions that they were getting them involved in were genuine undercover spy agency missions and involved eliminating or putting pressure on people who were dangers for France. And this is through a series of intermediaries.

[Rosie Wright]

So we've got two masons with their sort of side hustle and violent intimidation, and the two guards who sit at the gate of France's MI6. Then there's another key character in this story, a man called Sebastian Leroy. Tell us about him.

[Adam Sage]

So Leroy was one of the intermediaries. I mean, he. He is the. Let's say, the middleman. He, Le Roy, is a private security agent who tried to get into the French MI6 and failed, I think several times. So he's someone who's also dreaming of being a spy but never made it. I mean, he didn't even make it at sentry level. I mean, so he set up his own private security business and he's been contacted by the masterminds of this plot, the alleged mastermind, saying, we have people that we'd like to eliminate or put pressure on or commit some act of violence against in the name of France. Can you organize it? And then he'd go and see the operatives who would carry it out and he would relay this information. Here we have a mission for France, an undercover mission. Would you like to carry it out? The question for the trial, which is going to last several months, is whether he genuinely believed, and the others genuinely believed, that they were carrying out secret missions for the intelligence agencies or whether they were just doing it for money.

[Rosie Wright]

So when Sebastian Loire then approaches the guards, that's Bourdin and Esnau, he's got a mission. What was that?

[Adam Sage]

So he goes up to them and says, would you like to take part in this mission? To us, we say, to neutralize a Mossad agent in France who's a danger for the French public interest and who needs to be taken out. And they say, yes. The Mossad agent, though, wasn't a Mossad agent.

[Rosie Wright]

So who was this woman who had a hit out on her, who ordered it and why? And what does this have to do with the Freemasons? We'll uncover all the murky layers next.

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[Rosie Wright]

Adam before the break, we heard this story leading up to this attempt to murder this poor woman and it's claimed these two French agents thought or at least were told that she was a Mossad agent. So who actually is she and why did someone want her dead so badly that they'd go to these MI6 agents to do it?

[Adam Sage]

This was a woman called Marielle Ndini who had absolutely nothing to do with Mossad at all. She'd never been to Israel. She has no connections with Israel, she has no connections with any form of intelligence agency whatsoever. I mean, she's just, just a businesswoman in the Paris region and also head of the Union of Business Coaches in the Paris region. And the reason that she was being targeted, quite stupefying reason, is that another third member of the same Masonic Lodge was also a business coach and didn't like the new regulations that the Union of Business Coaches was implementing because it would have meant he would have lost his registration. So he went up to his two Masonic brothers or somehow got into conversation with his two Masonic brothers. He said, I've got a problem with this head of the Union of Business Coaches and they say no problem, we'll sort it out for you, we'll eliminate her. They go and see their intermediary Leroy. This is what prosecutors allege anyway, Leroy and say we have someone to eliminate this person. Nahi Lendini is a dangerous Mossad agent He then goes to see the two lowly guards, the MI6, French MI6 base, and says, would you like to go and eliminate this Mossad agent? And then they go off to do it. Fortunately, they're caught before they can.

[Rosie Wright]

Why do they believe him? How did he manage to present this compelling case that they thought, oh, right, yes, right, here we go.

[Adam Sage]

Partly, no doubt, because they're vulnerable, psychologically vulnerable, partly because the people at the top of this, within the Masonic Lodge, the Masonic brothers who are organizing all this, they do have genuine BI Agency contacts. There was someone involved in it as well, called Yannick Pham, who was an intelligence agency operative at the time. Although he was actually on parental leave, he was involved in it as well. So the story wasn't entirely absurd to the extent that they are being contacted by people who do have intelligence agency contacts. Although obviously if they looked into a bit, they would have realised that the supposed target had absolutely nothing to do with, with Mossad and intelligence world at all.

[Rosie Wright]

For her, Mary Helene, I mean, how does she feel having realized not only had someone then sort of put out a hit to kill her, but just kind of how close she came to being in such great danger?

[Adam Sage]

She said, I mean, in interviews with the French media, that when the police came to her and said, have you got anything to do with Mossad? I mean, she thought that they were completely crazy? No, she said, of course not. And then she. Then they explained that there was a contract on her head. She was absolutely flabbergasted, astonished and stressed, really. I mean, initially she couldn't for the life of her imagine who could have wanted her dead. I mean, she was just an ordinary woman, a morbid businesswoman in Paris suburbs. I mean, there was absolutely nothing in her life to explain it rationally at all. Police went on with the investigations and unraveled the story and explained it to her that it was a rival business coach who didn't like the new regulations that she was implementing in the union and that who had essentially alleged to have ordered her killing and that as part of this plot she'd been presented as a Mossad agent. Whereas you can imagine, I mean, her life was completely turned upside down. She didn't dare to go out. She actually employed her own bodyguard for a while. She couldn't sleep, she had to take tranquilizers. She's left the Paris region, has now moved to the Alps. I mean, her life has been totally transformed because of this. And she's saying, she's explained that she's still suffering from the psychological trauma of it and the hopes that the trial will finally allow her to close this and move on.

[Rosie Wright]

ADAM Crucially, this ploy they had was unsuccessful.

[Adam Sage]

In the case of the Maya Nandini, the attempted murder was unsuccessful. However, it seems that the same team, not or members of the same squad, are alleged to have committed one murder and other attempted murders. Not Bourdin and Hainault, the two guards that were involved in this particular attempted murder of the business coach. But other people connected to the same team are on trial for murder and for other attempted murders as well.

[Rosie Wright]

Can you tell us about some of the other cases that the police claim to have found and how they seemingly linked to the Freemasons?

[Adam Sage]

So there's a guy called Pasquale, who was a Corsican, who was quite a well known rally driver in France. He earned quite a lot of money as a rally driver, but he spent far more on parties and drink and other things. And he'd run up debts of €100,000. And the people who were owed the money were new members of the Masonic Lodge and went to them and said, well, listen, we're having trouble getting our hundred thousand euros back from Pascuali, the rally driver. Can you help us? And the organizer, the hit squad organizers said, yes, no problem. We can sort that out for you for a few tens of thousands of euros. What happened was that Pasquale was the rally driver, ended up by being kidnapped from his home, shot dead, put in a boot of a car, driven to a forest where his body was left. He'd just disappeared. His body was found by a walker in the forest several months later. At the time, police had no idea how he'd come to be killed. I mean, they knew it was a murder, but not know who'd done it. I mean, following the arrest of the, of the members of the, of the hit squad organized by the Freemasons, who'd been going around telling people that, that their targets were enemies of France. And it came to light that this is what had happened in the case of the rally driver. There was another business case where Boulder, who's a member of the Masonic Lodge, a former spy, was asked what he could do to help settle a dispute. And he said, well, I can put your rival for anything from a wheelchair to a coffin, depending on how much you have to pay. It's. It spun out from there. I mean, about a decade ago this started really. I mean, it started by operations to pressure people. I mean, involved beating them up, setting fire to their houses, as I said, them throwing dead rats into their gardens and went on and it escalated into murder.

[Rosie Wright]

How difficult has it been to sort of extract the information? Particularly the Freemasons are known as being sort of notoriously secretive.

[Adam Sage]

Yes, well, I mean, the police have managed to. Police and prosecutors have managed to get the information. I mean, the hit squad that was put together, I mean, it wasn't a, an official Freemason hit squad, if you like. It was by people who happened to know each other because they were members of the lodge and they were using other people as well. And gradually, I mean, by questioning the different people involved and there were 22 people in the dock over this. I mean, it's a wide, wide ranging scheme. The police were unable to unravel what had happened and to gain the information. The basic facts of the case don't seem to be disputed. I mean, that is to say that there were contracts put on the head of quite a number of people either to kill them or to inflict violence on them. What is disputed, being disputed in the trial is who knew what and who ordered what and who was influencing who. But essentially the fact that there were plots to kill or to beat up or to, or to commit arson, that isn't really being disputed.

[Rosie Wright]

So who's on trial right now? Is it the members of the hit squad and the organizers of the hit squad?

[Adam Sage]

So the 22 people on trial essentially are the alleged organizers, Vaglio and Beaulieu, who met within this Masonic lodge. They're the operatives also in the DOC who carried out the hits. They're the intermediaries who acted as links between the organizers and the people who pulled the trigger or who had the guns on the ground. And they're also in the dock are the people who went to the hit squad to say, we've got a problem, can you sort it out? And we've got businessmen and women, essentially. We've got a couple of business owners from eastern France who didn't like a unionist, ostensibly respectable owners of a plastics plant in a small town in eastern France who knew the men, the Freemasons were organizing this hit squad and said, can you sort it out for us? And there was a contract put on the head of this unionist. I mean, fortunately, that contract was never carried out. But I mean, the two business people who related to a ward had paid for it. They're in the dock. And so we've got this spiraling network that goes from the organizers to the operatives to the people who are asking for their rivals to be eliminated.

[Rosie Wright]

Yeah, it's a huge web. I mean, you said it's going to take months to see this trial through to completion. We should say that this is an ongoing trial. So in regards to how the defendants are pleading, all people mentioned in this podcast so far have pleaded not guilty. The man accused of hiring the hit, that's the business coach, Jean Luc Barreux, he's denied the accusation that he ordered any such attack, as do those alleged to have helped him to do so, Valio and Beaulieu. Beaulieu, for his part, is said to have told investigators that he was being manipulated by Vaglio. So it's quite complicated. And what's interesting is the defense being put forward by the two individuals. We started this story with the two men sitting in the car outside the nursery, Baldan and Esno. In their defense, they claim they thought it was an official intelligence operation, as does Sebastian Leroy, the man who's alleged to have recruited them, as well as Yannick Pham, who also said he didn't knowingly take part in criminal activity as he wasn't fully aware of what was really happening. They are claiming they genuinely thought they were doing this for work. That's what their defense is.

[Adam Sage]

Yes. They say that they were convinced that this was a mission for France. I mean, for the greater public good, to eliminate a spy who was a danger for the country. The prosecution say this is a spurious defense, and it was attempted murder for financial motives. That is absolutely their defense. And it's pretty much the defense of quite a number of the 22 people in the dock. They were convinced that they were being given orders that were secret orders, but that were coming down from on high to carry out clandestine missions for French intelligence agencies in the name of the greater public good.

[Rosie Wright]

I mean, how do you start to untangle responsibility?

[Adam Sage]

It's a very good question. I mean, pretty much all the defendants in the dock, their defense is that they were somehow manipulated or under the influence of someone else. I mean, if we go to the two alleged masterminds, I mean, the businessman with this economic intelligence company who's said to have been at the heart of all this, he says that he was being manipulated and under the influence of the former spy, who pretty much says that he was under the influence of the businessman. And as we go down the ladder towards the bottom, including the intermediaries, I mean, they all say that they were either being lied to or under the influence of everyone else. So that is the case for the judges in this trial and the jury, which is going to be difficult, is to work out who had the original lie and who genuinely believed it that they were carrying out missions for France and who was just doing it for financial gain, because essentially that would determine the length of their sentences.

[Rosie Wright]

I mean, it's going to be extraordinary for you to follow this trial as it, as it developed, I guess as sort of a final thought. Adam, what does it say about the kind of credibility of the French security service or the vetting of the people that they have working for it, if you could be, if you could be duped in this way?

[Adam Sage]

That is a very good question because one of the things that came out in trial this week was that the senior officers within the DGSO, the spy agency, the French MI6, pretty much knew what these guards were like. I mean, they said that the evidence that came out that they were prone to lying, unreliable, untrustworthy, which of course begs the question to vows was why on earth were they employed there in the first place? And indeed some of the other people in the dock are former spy agency people as well. It is a very embarrassing case for the time. First French MI6 and indeed for the equivalent of the French MI5 as well. And it comes at a time when they're already under significant pressure in a number of other areas. A couple of years ago, President Macron got very, very angry and let it be known through various media channels with the French criminal MI6 because it had failed to predict the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It had failed to predict a series of coup d' etat in French former French West African states that has effectively seen France kicked out of French West Africa in favor of the Russians. They've also, the same agency has also been involved in a separate case, a very, very bizarre case as well, which has led to it being prosecuted or former or members of the agency being prosecuted for threatening a another businessman in, in effectively a private case. So it, it is under pressure in all sorts of areas and this trial that we're witnessing now isn't going to do it any good.

[Rosie Wright]

That was the Times Paris correspondent Adam Sage. You can read his piece Freemasons Board Spies and Murder for Hunter scandal at France's MI6 online at the times.com the producer and sound designer was Dave Creasy. The executive producer was Kate Ford. I'm Rosie Wright. We'll be back tomorrow.

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