MI6 carries the cultural swagger of James Bond, while its French counterpart, the DGSE, is often associated with the intricate, bureaucratic complexities depicted in the television drama Le Bureau. The film and TV shows may be fictional, but a survey run by a French magazine that placed the British spy agency above the French as No 1 across all of Europe this week is not.
L’Express, a news weekly, conducted a Eurovision-style poll of 60 current and former spies from across the continent, plus the CIA and Israel’s Mossad. Each was asked to rank their top five foreign intelligence agencies in secret. MI6 finished first with 251 points, significantly ahead of the DGSE, which secured 169 points, with other agencies trailing behind.
The result did not surprise Alexandra Saviana, a deputy editor at the publication specialising in defence and intelligence, though the margin of victory was unexpected. “It is a huge point gap,” she said, reflecting the opinions of insiders and allies, 17 of whom are or were agency chiefs in an interconnected, covert ecosystem.
At MI6’s headquarters in Vauxhall, London, there has been no sign of a public reaction from its chief, Blaise Metreweli. However, there is a quiet satisfaction at the verdict, as the agency values its perception by allies and adversaries alike. “Reputation matters a lot in the espionage game,” noted a former Whitehall insider.
L’Express noted that British spies fascinate Europe and beyond. Saviana attributed MI6’s success to its record in recruiting and running high-level human sources over generations, maintaining a focus on human intelligence in an era dominated by technology and satellite monitoring. “The British have the ability to play the long game, to bet on sources over 10 years, a bit like the Russians,” a former French DGSE spy told the magazine, adding “and they have a penchant for underhand tactics” without revealing further details.
One ex-spy expressed scepticism about the survey, noting that a human intelligence service is only as good as the agents on its books. Under Richard Moore, MI6’s previous chief, there were concerns regarding the volume of high-value assets. Others suggest that greater credit might have been due to MI6’s sister agency, the signals intelligence experts at GCHQ, though they were not included in the poll.
The agency’s reputation is built on long-standing traditions, including recruiting Cold War assets like the KGB’s Oleg Gordievsky. Gordievsky served as a double agent through the late 1970s and early 1980s, helping convince Margaret Thatcher to engage with Mikhail Gorbachev before being smuggled into Finland in 1985. Not every mole escaped; Alireza Akbari, a former Iranian deputy defence minister and British citizen, was arrested in 2019 and executed in 2023. Though his confession appeared coerced, intelligence sources indicated he had revealed the existence of the Fordow nuclear site in 2008.
MI6 has faced significant failures, most notably in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war. The agency was accused of simplistically supporting the case for war, promoting false sources, and claiming Saddam Hussein could attack UK targets within 45 minutes. It relied on one source who described chemical weapons devices remarkably similar to those in the film The Rock, marking a low point for the service.
L’Express argued that MI6 rehabilitated itself before the Ukraine war in February 2022, correctly warning alongside the CIA that Russia was about to invade. In contrast, French and German counterparts remained sceptical until the last minute, having misjudged the situation; the chief of the German BND even visited Kyiv the day before the invasion, seemingly unprepared.
This success reflects MI6’s close relationship with the CIA, part of the wider Five Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangement between the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. These ties are the envy of continental Europe, despite complex political dynamics. “Every other country wants to say they are the sixth eye,” Saviana remarked. Gordon Corera, co-presenter of The Rest is Classified, recalled a story of a young officer meeting a contact who greeted him with, “Hello, Mr Bond.” The former chief noted, “I doubt if he would have received such a warm welcome if he’d been from the Belgian secret service.” The report also notes that spies from a number of countries indicated he was the person who had passed on the existence of the Fordow nuclear enrichment site in 2008, though the confessions appeared coerced.