Assane Diop
Click here to see him as a teenager
Played by: Omar Sy (adult), Mamadou Haidara (teenager)
A professional thief who relies on his charm and ingenuity to carve his path in the world, largely through criminal activity inspired by his love for the Arsène Lupin books, Assane struggles to balance his many heists with his personal relationships, particularly those with his ex-wife Claire and their son Raoul.
- The Ace: In playing him, Omar Sy gets to demonstrate his skills as a comedian, a dramatic actor, and an action star all at the same time, since Assane is pretty much brilliant at everything he touches and possesses charisma in spades.
- Action Dad: He's this, although at the beginning of the series his son isn't aware of his activities.
- All Take and No Give: Assane has aspects of this in his relationship with Claire. For ages she hoped he would settle down and commit to her and their child, but he has remained drawn to his lifestyle as a Gentleman Thief, letting her raise their child on her own while also relying on her for emotional support.
- Anti-Hero: While many of Assane's exploits are criminal activities done to clear his beloved father's name, he does have a history of committing theft for his own and Benjamin's profit, cheating on and lying to Claire, (unintentionally) endangering Raoul, manipulating Juliette, and more.
- Ascended Fanboy: Has become a modern-day Arsène Lupin after being obsessed with the stories as a teen.
- Badass Driver: When he's chasing Léonard and Raoul down, Assane jumps a level crossing a split second before a train barrels through. Guédira, sitting in the passenger's seat, is extremely shaken.
- Base-Breaking Character: In-Universe. His takedown of Hubert Pellegrini and his subsequent flight from Paris results in his exploding into national fame, but the French public is divided as to his merits (or lack thereof). While the police and the upper classes see him as an unruly and potentially dangerous criminal, he amasses a substantial fandom mainly amongst younger and more left-leaning people, who turn him into a kind of anti-capitalist folk hero.
- Baritone of Strength: His deep voice complements his large physical stature. Exaggerated when he uses a voice scrambler while interrogating Dumont, which turns him into a truly menacing basso profundo.
- Batman Grabs a Gun: When Raoul gets kidnapped by Léonard, Assane threatens to kill the hitman, despite his Lupin-inspired moral code dictating that he never murder his enemies. And it really doesn't sound like he's bluffing.
- Beardness Protection Program: He grows a large beard while hiding out from law enforcement in Marseille.
- Berserk Button: Don't ever insult his father. Don't threaten Claire and Raoul, either.
- Broken Tears: When he mistakenly believes that Raoul has been incinerated.
- Calling Card: Following the Louvre heist, he starts leaving diamonds from the necklace he stole behind as gifts for his allies (or to mock his enemies).
- Can Always Spot a Cop: After years honing his skill as a criminal, Assane has become very good at this, as Guédira winds up finding out.
- Cane Fu: While in disguise as an old man, he beats up Pellegrini's Mooks with a cane.
- Caper Rationalization: Assane commits thefts as part of his revenge scheme against the Pellegrini family.
- Character Catchphrase:
- Vous m'avez vu, mais vous m'avez pas regardé. (Translated: "You saw me, but you didn't look at me", or more idiomatically, "You saw me, but you didn't notice me.")
- Assane often asks his interlocutors: "Have you heard of X?", quickly demonstrates it, and concludes "Now you know." X can be anything from a Pressure Point to a sleight-of-hand trick.
- The Charmer: Assane is extremely likeable; he often uses this to ingratiate himself with people before swindling them.
- The Chessmaster: Excels at planning out heists and schemes, with episodes frequently revealing he had mapped out his plot days or weeks prior, his enemies none the wiser until he springs his trap or makes his escape while they're left helpless.
- Chewing the Scenery: Usually when he's trying to create a distraction.
- Crazy-Prepared: Assane can adapt to a great variety of situations, and if events don't seem to go his way, look again, he's always one step ahead. Well, at least until his family is endangered.
- Con Men Hate Guns: Assane doesn't carry firearms. The only time he uses one is to shoot the wheels of Belkacem's parked police car in order to stop her from catching him.
- Cop Hater: In Assane's words, "I don't work with cops." Aside from Guédira...
- The Dandy: Played for Laughs with his disguises in Part 3—in one episode he's seen sporting bright pink Pimp Duds. More generally, he cares a lot about looking good.
- Declaration of Protection: Frequently makes these to his family and friends. He tries to follow through on them.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of cultured, invincible Action Heroes like James Bond. Despite his suaveness, his charisma and his large skill set, Assane is seen having difficulties maintaining a healthy relationship with his family, and actually winds up facing the consquences for his actions.
- Determinator: He'll be sure to achieve his goals one way or another, and is committed to doing whatever it takes to get revenge for his father's death.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: A controversial yet iconic figure captures the minds and hearts of the public before dying in mysterious circumstances in Paris and being buried at Père-Lachaise cemetery. He's subsequently the subject of a massive conspiracy theory that he faked his death, with various people claiming to have seen him out and about. Is this in reference to Assane...or Jim Morrison? (The difference, of course, is that in Assane's case the rumors are one hundred percent accurate.)
- Easily Forgiven: It seems that the people that care about Assane can rarely stay upset with him for very long, even Benjamin after he sold him out to the police and his family after he fakes his death and stalks them while disguised as Raoul's coach.
- Establishing Character Moment: His tricking the loan sharks in their apartment in Chapter 1, before demonstrating his true strength and uttering his Signature Line.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- Assane had an affair with Juliette while with Claire, but broke it off because he genuinely loved Claire and didn't want to hurt her. After he's done with Hubert, he makes sure to find time to see her and Raoul before going undercover for a while.
- He's willing to use Juliette as a pawn in his plot to ruin Hubert, but legitimately attempts to treat her with kindness and believes that she can achieve more when not under her father's thumb.
- Fake Identity Baggage: In part 3, he creates the persona of Alex, a youth basketball coach, in order to keep an eye on Claire and Raoul without them knowing it. Things get a little dicey when Claire legitimately starts falling for "Alex", leading to an awkward Almost Kiss between them as Assane realizes that he might have taken things too far.
- Family Honor: His motivations largely revolve around this.
- Fauxreigner: Assane's "Paul Sernine" character is meant to be an American tech CEO. His "Ali Abdelkarim" persona, meanwhile, is a former colonel from Chad.
- Freddie Mercopy: One of Assane's disguises (a mustache and buckteeth) makes him look rather similar to a certain someone...
- Freudian Excuse: His journey to being a self-styled Expy of Arsène Lupin started with the injustices he experienced in his childhood.
- The Gadfly: He loves messing with the police. (The police do not love being messed with.)
- Gadgeteer Genius: Assane is shown to have a facility with drones and security cameras, and is even able to make deepfakes of his enemies.
- Genius Bruiser: He's skilled with both his fists and his mind.
- Gentleman Thief: Just like his literary hero, Assane is a force of pure guile and charm. With a smile on his face, he can break into any secure location, make away with his mark and frequently have his targets smiling and laughing as they don't even know they're being robbed.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: When Assane finds out that Mariama is serving a prison sentence in Senegal (and thus believes himself to be the son of two convicted criminals), he tells Claire that he is no better than them.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: This is Assane's modus operandi.
- Hot-Blooded: When he's angry, watch out...
- Hyper-Awareness: He's able to use his surroundings to his advantage.
- Hypocrite:
- Assane constantly insists to Claire that he'll be able to change his ways—but during his interrogation with Dumont, he explicitly declares that he doesn't believe people can change for the better.
- In Part 2, he complains to Benjamin about Claire selling him out in order to get Raoul back from Hubert Pellegrini, although she tipped him off before he could get caught. In Part 3, Assane does the exact same thing to Benjamin in order to save his mother—except it's an order of magnitude worse since Assane actually goes through with it and lets Benjamin spend a harrowing spell in prison.
- Iconic Outfit: Track jacket + jeans + Badass Longcoat + flat cap or newsboy cap + Air Jordans.
- I Have Many Names: Well, aside from Assane Diop, there's Luis Perenna the janitor, Paul Sernine the American millionaire, Max the IT Man, Salvator the ageing whistleblower, Michel Beaumont the deliveryman, Sam Delangle the getaway driver, Cornelius the cloakroom attendant, Alex the basketball coach, Ali Abdelkarim the former colonel, and more.
- An Immigrant's Tale: He and his father moved to France from Senegal when he was a child.
- Improvisational Ingenuity: He's a very quick thinker, regularly coming up with Indy Ploys and managing to get himself out of what seem like incredibly tight spots with ease.
- Informed Ability: His status as a Master of Disguise. Many viewers feel that the disguises that apparently make Assane unrecognizable to other people In-Universe fail to mask Omar Sy's distinctive facial features in any way.
- It's All About Me: Arguably his most prominent character flaw, much like the original Arsène Lupin. Assane's egocentrism routinely creates friction in his relationships, as he appears to expect that Claire and Benjamin be uncritically supportive of all of his endeavors, and that he should be able to get away with using both them and others to further his goals so long as said goals are noble in nature. The end result is a whole myriad of Heel Realizations and What the Hell, Hero? moments in which he's forced to confront the fact that his actions are making life extremely difficult for those he cares about.Assane: (to Claire and Raoul) You were right. I cause too many problems. I have to go away. Far from you.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy:
- In his youth, he stole a violin for Claire, who desperately needed one for an upcoming audition, and told her that he had taken it out on a loan. Unfortunately, they were both caught.
- This is the reason why he hands himself over to the cops at the end of Part 3: he believes that it will grant Claire and Raoul freedom from the danger and stress he brings into their life.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: In the first few episodes, it seems like Assane can do no wrong. But when things do end up crashing down for him, they crash down hard.
- Karmic Thief: Many of Assane's early crimes were done purely for the profit of himself or his friends...but it's hard to feel bad about it since the people he stole from were blatant Jerkasses.
- Kavorka Man: In his disguise as Coach Alex, he looks decidedly odd. That doesn't stop Claire from falling for him.
- Kryptonite Factor: If you manage to get your hands on someone that Assane truly cares about, he'll almost immediately begin making increasingly desperate, impulsive, emotionally-driven choices in order to save them, often landing himself in serious trouble as a result.
- Janitor Impersonation Infiltration: Assane favors such disguises to go Beneath Notice.
- He infiltrates the Louvre Museum as a cleaner for recon purposes. His Caper Crew then does the same in the first part of the necklace heist (they don security guard suits afterwards), while he himself plays Mock Millionaire.
- He disguises himself as a Uber Eats-knockoff deliveryman on bicycle for the rendezvous with Juliette.
- Large Ham: Depending on the dub. Omar Sy's original version is definitely this.
- Living a Double Life: Downplayed, as Claire knows that he is a thief. Played straight for Assane's relationship with Raoul, who seems completely unaware of what Assane does on his own until the second episode of Part 2.
- Lovable Rogue: He's very charming and cares about his loved ones in addition to being a master criminal.
- Made of Iron: Takes some substantial blows over the course of the series, but never seems to get seriously injured. Most obviously, in one of the 1998 flashback sequences, he's involved in a genuinely awful car accident, but despite the fact that he wasn't wearing a seat belt, he escapes with only minor injuries.
- Manipulative Bastard: Assane is a good man at heart, but he isn't above toying with other people's emotions to get what he needs. He insinuates he'll hurt Dumont's wife unless he gives up information on Hubert, strings Juliette along with his natural charisma in order to turn her against her father, and fakes his death in front of Claire and Raoul.
- Manly Facial Hair: Sports a variety of styles over the course of the show, from Perma-Stubble to a full beard to a trimmed goatee.
- Married to the Job: To the extent that what he does can be called a job, he's this (to Claire's distress).
- Noble Male, Roguish Male: He manages to be both, in different settings. This is particularly evident in his two major romantic relationships: Juliette developed a crush on Assane Diop the suave, duplicitous thief, while Claire fell for Assane Diop the gallant, protective gentleman.
- No More Lies: Zigzagged in Part 3, during which Assane uses extensive prosthetics to disguise himself as Raoul's new basketball coach Alex, in order to keep watch over his family without them realizing it. Although Assane is obviously deceiving them both, he winds up having some of his most honest and self-revealing conversations with Claire while in character, admitting that he has no idea how to be a good father and that he does worry frequently, although he rarely shows it.
- No "Police" Option: For obvious reasons. It comes back around to bite him when he finds himself in a situation in which police assistance would actually be useful (namely, his son's kidnapping). Luckily for him, police officer and fellow Lupin fan Guédira is there to help out.
- Notorious Parent: He's a wanted criminal with a family, whom he tries his best to make time for.
- Not So Invincible After All: He gets evidence on Hubert near the end of Part 1 and plans to expose him on live television (under heavy disguise), only for Hubert's goons to doctor it, discrediting Assane and leading to Fabienne's murder. Later, in Part 2, his son is kidnapped, he gets arrested (briefly), the police go after his civilian identity, he's framed for murder and forced to go on the run with Benjamin, and even when he gets Hubert and his co-conspirators arrested and his name cleared concerning the murder charge, he still has to hightail it out of Paris because he's now wanted for all the illegal stuff he did do. Hey, he wanted to live like Arsène Lupin and now he has to deal with the consequences.
- Old-School Chivalry: He uses this to great effect. It's fitting, given that his inspiration is a character from the turn of the twentieth century.
- Papa Wolf: Despite his absenteeism, Assane deeply loves his son Raoul, and when the latter is kidnapped by Léonard, he furiously hunts the man down, ready to abandon his Thou Shall Not Kill code he holds himself to as a Gentleman Thief.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: In Part 3, when he's an infamous criminal and also presumed dead, Assane initially puts on elaborate disguises to conceal himself in public but eventually starts going around with no disguise and feigning annoyance or amusement when people recognize him.
- Parental Neglect: Assane has difficulties when it comes to being fully present in Raoul's life. Although he genuinely enjoys spending time with his son, he's generally content to be a hands-off parent—one doesn't get the sense that there was any debate regarding Claire getting custody.
- Pyrrhic Victory: At the end of Part 2 he finally ruins Hubert Pellegrini's life and exposes him for the Manipulative Bastard he is to all of Paris. Unfortunately, the police now know that he's the guy who robbed the Louvre (among other things) and he's forced to leave Paris and his family until everything blows over.
- Really Gets Around: Downplayed. Although Assane has a preternatural ability when it comes to seducing members of the opposite sex, he only has two love interests of any significance, and even then his dalliances with Juliette come a distant second to his main relationship with Claire.
- Refuge in Audacity: Like his literary inspiration, Assane basically runs on this trope. Many of his crimes are incredibly ostentatious. The police are annoyed by the way he seems to be trolling them.
- Revenge Before Reason: Assane's obsession with getting vengeance on Hubert Pellegrini leads to a bunch of negative consequences for both himself and those he cares about—specifically, Fabienne's murder, Raoul's kidnapping and near-death (which in turn almost destroys his relationship with Claire), and his identity as a thief being made public.
- Scary Black Man: Can easily be this when he's trying to make a point to his enemies.
- Scholarship Student: An Anonymous Benefactor (Anne Pellegrini) paid a scholarship in a prestigious high school to Assane after his father's death.
- Shipper on Deck: In Part 3 he easily spots Guédira's crush on Belkacem and schemes to set them up with one another.
- Teen Genius: Before becoming an adult one, Assane was already a little Lupin in training, coming up with a brilliant scheme to evade punishment for stealing a violin for Claire from a racist shop owner.
- Underestimating Badassery: Assane frequently uses this to his advantage, pretending to be an innocuous passerby or a blue-collar worker in order to seem harmless.
- Violence Really Is the Answer: Although he won't kill anyone, Assane never hesitates to give his enemies a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, as both Léonard and Pascal wind up finding out.
- "Well Done, Dad!" Guy: Assane actually cares about Raoul's approval of his actions, and is overjoyed when Raoul tells him to keep pursuing his vendetta against Hubert even after he offers to stop.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: On many occasions.
- For instance, there are his false declarations of affection for Juliette. While Assane's goal is to turn her against her father, both to weaken him and to try to distance her from him, he still shamelessly lied to and used someone who genuinely thought he cared about her.
- In Part 3, Assane fakes his death and has Benjamin lie to Claire and Raoul about it. While it's done with the intention of protecting them, they still have to deal with the heartbreak of losing a partner and father (although Raoul always believed it was a ruse).
- What the Hell, Hero?: In episode 3.01, Assane is called out by Claire for his It's All About Me attitude and his expectation that he will be able to simply waltz back into her life and have everything be forgiven.
- When I Was Your Age...: Invokes this near verbatim when lamenting how much time Raoul spends on his phone.
