Hubert Pellegrini

Hubert Pellegrini is the main antagonist of the French thriller series Lupin. He is portrayed by Hervé Pierre.

Hubert is a powerful entrepreneur and one of the richest men in France. When a diamond necklace, originally belonging to Marie-Antoinette, was stolen from his safe, he immediately blamed his chauffeur Babakar Diop, who was arrested and died in prison. As a result, Babakar's son Assane has always carried a grudge against the Pellegrini family.

1990s
In 1995, Hubert's company is on the verge of collapsing. At the same time, he hires Babakar Diop, a Senegalese immigrant with a teenaged son named Assane, as his new chauffeur. Unbeknownst to Babakar, Hubert intends to frame him for the theft of a diamond necklace that had once belonged to Marie-Antoinette in order to collect the insurance money.

Hubert treats Babakar poorly, snapping at him in public and insulting him in private. To apologize for Hubert's behavior, his wife Anne allows Babakar to choose a book from their library to give to Assane for his upcoming birthday. Babakar chooses a collection of stories about the famed gentleman thief Arsène Lupin.

When the Queen's Necklace goes missing from Hubert's safe, he orders Babakar to be brought in and questioned. Although Babakar's fingerprints are found on the safe, he denies responsibility for the crime and begs Anne for help; however, she does nothing, and Gabriel Dumont, the detective in charge of the case, allows Babakar to be taken to the police station.



Some time later, Hubert and Dumont discuss the situation regarding the necklace. Dumont tells Hubert that Babakar is continuing to claim innocence, and that if the necklace is not found, he will be released. Dumont also notes that Hubert had the insurance policy on the necklace increased shortly before it was stolen; Hubert claims that he had been told that is was undervalued.

More time passes, and Dumont tells Hubert that Babakar's movements on the day of the theft rule out his culpability, suggesting that the fingerprints on the safe had been planted to incriminate him. Sensing that he is being accused of insurance fraud, Hubert mentions that he has the police department in his pocket, and that he is in possession of other powerful connections. After Hubert makes vague threats against Dumont's wife, he is able to convince the detective to get Anne to talk Babakar into signing a confession to the crime, promising Dumont a promotion for his efforts. Everything goes according to plan and Babakar is given a lengthy sentence. Even so, Hubert is concerned about Babakar's continued defiance from inside his prison cell. He instructs another inmate named Léonard Koné to kill Babakar while staging the death to look like a suicide.

Hubert shows little care for the livelihood of Assane after his father's death. When Assane is transferred to the College d’Andrésy, he sees Hubert's daughter Juliette on occasion. Upon discovering this, Hubert bans Juliette from meeting with Assane, telling her that people of Assane's race are not worthy of the Pellegrini family.

The insurance payout from the necklace gets Hubert's business back on track, and soon afterward he sells arms and explosives to a group of Malaysian terrorists, who go on to blow up the French embassy in Kuala Lumpur, killing eleven people. In 1996, an investigative journalist named Fabienne Bériot publishes a book entitled Dirty Money: The Pellegrini System, in attempt to expose Hubert's corrupt and illegal activities. However, Hubert and his lawyers challenge Fabienne with a record-breaking defamation lawsuit. Upon winning the case, Hubert uses his influence to make sure that Fabienne will never work as a journalist again.

Part 1
Hubert continues to manage his business empire, and maintains a strong relationship with Juliette, though he is now estranged from Anne. After her conversation with Assane in Luxembourg Gardens, Juliette asks her father if Babakar was really the person who had stolen their necklace twenty-five years earlier. Hubert is surprised and angered to be questioned by his daughter, presenting her with the binary choice of being with him or against him. Unnerved, Juliette pledges her loyalty.



One day, while they are in a meeting, Hubert and Juliette learn that a twitter account with the handle @Salvator813 is threatening to release footage of Hubert selling arms to the Malaysian terrorists. Hubert tells Juliette, who is worried about the possible effects of the controversy on the launch of her new foundation, that the video is fake. To assuage her concerns, he gives a press conference in front of his house, affirming his patriotism as a Frenchman, asserting his credentials as a successful entrepreneur, and challenging "Salvator" to show himself and prove his accusations. Fabienne, standing amongst the press covering the event, loudly asks Hubert if he feels personal responsibility for the Kuala Lumpur attack. Visibly enraged, Hubert tells the reporters that he will not be taking any more questions.

Hubert learns that "Salvator" intends to appear on a lowbrow talk show called The Other Edition, and, unbeknownst to Assane, he is present on set during the taping. When the footage of his dealings with the Malaysians is played, it becomes clear that Hubert has managed to have it doctored, eliminating all of the incriminating evidence. The heavily-disguised Assane leaves the studio in a rage, and Hubert orders him to be tracked down. Juliette, who has been watching the broadcast and is now fully on her father's side, calls him and tells him that she thinks that "Salvator" is actually Assane Diop. Hubert instructs Léonard, who has become his associate, to find Assane. Leonard's search leads to his murdering Fabienne and chasing Assane across the streets of Paris. When Léonard catches their target with his family on the train to Le Havre on December 11th, Hubert tells him to leave Claire and Raoul alone, but to kill Assane.

Part 2


Hubert receives another phone call from Léonard, who tells him that while he was unable to catch Assane, he has kidnapped Raoul instead. Hubert is horrified and angry, and orders Léonard to fix his mistake. A third call from Léonard, during the night, informs Hubert that Raoul is being driven away from captivity by Youssef Guédira. Hubert is relieved to hear this, and later explains to Dumont that since Guédira is subject to the commissioner's orders, they can have Raoul brought to them and use him to bait Assane. Dumont is initially apprehensive but eventually agrees to go along with Hubert’s plan.

Later that morning, Hubert and Juliette make a promotional video for their foundation with the presenter of The Other Edition, in which Hubert condemns the actions of “Salvator.” As they are wrapping up, Hubert is told that his next appointment is waiting for him. Hubert is initially confused, stating that he is not aware of any appointment. Pascal Oblet quietly informs Hubert that the visitor is Raoul's mother, who is searching for her son. Hubert is intrigued, realizing that he can use Claire as another pawn in his plot to catch Assane.



During their meeting, Claire tells Hubert that he does not intimidate her, since taking her son was the worst thing he could have done to her. Sensing that she is in fact terrified of him, Hubert is merely amused by her proclamation. Claire offers to exchange the remaining diamonds (which had been in the possession of Benjamin Ferel) for Raoul. Well-aware that Claire is desperate, Hubert tells her that he wants Assane instead. Claire agrees to allow several undercover police officers, including Pascal, be posted in wait at her apartment building.

As ordered, Guédira brings Raoul to the Park Hyatt hotel in central Paris, where Juliette is giving a thank-you speech for the donors to her foundation. When Hubert is finally face to face with Raoul, he tells the teenager that the foundation will benefit children like him whose parents are criminals. Raoul asserts that his parents are not criminals. Hubert asks him what his father does for a living, and when Raoul is unable to respond, Hubert tells him that Assane is a thief like his father before him, and that he does not care about Raoul or Claire.

After Juliette has finished her speech, Hubert sees Dumont waving to him. When he walks over to Dumont, he finds that the commissioner has grown ashen, as he has been taking commands from someone he believed to be Hubert but whom he now realizes was Assane using technology to transform his voice. Dumont admits that he let Raoul leave with Assane, but Hubert is unconcerned, informing him that he has a backup plan in his deal with Claire. However, Claire manages to alert Assane to the danger before he can be caught; as such, Assane remains out of Hubert’s reach.

Some time later, Hubert receives a call from Lucas Lacroix, who is in charge of his investments. Lacroix is known for his conservative decision-making and ability to choose safe and stable opportunities, which Hubert finds irritating and boring. When Lacroix warns him that a new player named Philippe Courbet has arrived on the scene and is attempting to poach some of his clients, Hubert is immediately intrigued, and arranges to meet Courbet. Although Hubert is somewhat surprised by how young Courbet looks, he is impressed with his stated intention to take risks that, he claims, will make Hubert richer.



Hubert and Courbet begin meeting regularly, with Hubert firmly accepting the young man into his inner circle. He is completely unaware that Courbet is an accomplice of Assane and Benjamin who has no experience as a stockbroker. During one session, Hubert and Courbet discuss potential donations to the foundation, as well as Hubert’s plan to take 85% of the profits for himself. Courbet asks Hubert if Juliette is aware of this, and Hubert responds that she is not.

During another meeting with Courbet, Hubert is shocked when Captain Laugier and Guédira arrive and arrest him under suspicion of fraud and obstruction of justice. He is brought to the interrogation room, where he is questioned by Laugier and Lieutenant Belkacem. Hubert is generally uncooperative with the investigation, failing to reveal any significant information about his history with the necklace or his dealings with Léonard. However, when he is presented with a facial reconstruction of “Paul Sernine,” Hubert is quick to tell the police that the name of the man in the picture is actually Assane Diop. At this point, Hubert receives a call from Albert Fontan, the minister of the interior, who manages to get him released from custody.



Following his arrest, Hubert meets with Pascal and Léonard. Pascal reveals that Fabienne’s funeral was not paid for by Assane, but by "B. T. A. Ferel." Hubert is pleased to learn that Assane is working with an accomplice, and orders Léonard to follow Benjamin to Assane’s house in order to kill Assane. When Léonard has left, however, Hubert and Pascal plot to murder him instead, framing Assane for the crime. Some time later, Hubert receives a notice from Pascal stating that he has carried out their plan successfully. That night Assane's identity is publicly revealed and he becomes France's most wanted man, to Hubert's immense glee. Later, he sends Dumont information on Benjamin and his shop.

On the night before Juliette’s concert at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Hubert is speaking with Philippe and Pascal when Dumont enters and tells him that he has secured the evidence in Assane’s home. He also reveals his fears that several of his officers are close to uncovering the truth, and advises caution. Hubert is unconcerned, assuring Dumont that following the concert, the two will experience a windfall.

Even so, Hubert suspects that Assane will try to infiltrate the concert, and orders his men to be on guard. When the music starts, Hubert begins to relax and enjoy the experience, particularly as he knows that the donations currently flowing in will mainly go into his pocket. However, he is caught by surprise when Assane breaks into his private box and holds a knife to his throat, demanding a full confession. Hubert struggles to free himself, and Assane simply holds him tighter and asks him whether he killed Fabienne.

Hubert admits that Léonard murdered Fabienne on his orders. Assane then angrily asks him about Raoul’s kidnapping. Hubert maintains that he never meant for anything to happen to Raoul, claiming that children are sacred to him. Assane asserts that Hubert’s ultimate intention was to kill him; Hubert confesses that it was, but that he decided to frame him for Léonard’s murder instead. Assane asks Hubert who actually killed Léonard, and Hubert gives him Pascal’s name.



Assane turns the topic of the interrogation to his father. Hubert admits that he hired Babakar in order to blame him for stealing the Queen's Necklace, and had Léonard murder him because he believed that Babakar would never have accepted his sentencing. An enraged Assane ultimately leaves Hubert's box. Hubert orders his men to chase after him. Unbeknownst to Hubert, Assane has recorded the entire conversation.

Hubert is shocked when Assane storms the stage after the music has finished and publicly accuses him of all of his crimes. As the guests leave in a frenzy, Hubert is arrested by Guédira, who has received Assane’s recording of Hubert’s confession. He is placed into the back of a squad car and driven to the police station.

Part 3


Following his arrest at the Theatre du Châtelet, Hubert is sentenced to prison. Little is known about his time as an inmate, although he seems to be on good terms with the guards. After Assane turns himself in to the police, he is placed in a cell close to the one that Hubert occupies. At Hubert’s instruction, a guard delivers an envelope to Assane, containing a photograph of a teenaged Assane holding a copy of the Arsène Lupin book Cagliostro’s Revenge.

Personality
Hubert is a shrewd, cold and calculating entrepreneur. He is able to foresee where situations will end up long ahead of time, and does not hesitate to use his money and connections in order to circumvent the law. Hubert is devoted to his business empire, and strives to protect it from outside forces that he (often correctly) sees as trying to destroy it. To insulate himself from criticism, Hubert regularly plays up his patriotism as a Frenchman. This is helped by his close relationships with powerful figures in the French government as well as law enforcement and media.



Anne Pellegrini comments that one is either with or against Hubert. When somebody is against him, Hubert works hard at making their life a misery. Although he is shown to have few qualms about ordering the deaths of those who may implicate him in criminal activity (or associates whom he feels have outgrown their usefulness), he does not involve himself personally in these murders, instead employing assassins to do the deeds for him. In contrast, Hubert tends to be hands-on with regards to his work. Fabienne Bériot’s tape reveals that he personally sold arms to the Malaysian terrorists, and he continued to be enthusiastic about maintaining his affairs in 2020.

A highly manipulative person, Hubert sees other people as expendable tools to use in his plots. Murderous tendencies aside, he demonstrates a number of other significant character flaws, including virulent racism towards Assane and Babakar as well as more general classism. He does appear to draw a line at harming children, claiming that their lives are sacred to him. Even so, Hubert finds disadvantaging them in the abstract to be perfectly acceptable, as evidenced by his attempts to steal money from his own daughter’s foundation.

Hubert demonstrates a significant degree of overconfidence in his own plotting and decision-making. He sees little value in playing it safe and sticking to what has worked in the past. Hubert is willing to incorporate new opportunities into his plans should they present themselves, but at the same time dislikes it when his own subordinates improvise too much.

Anne
It is unclear how Anne and Hubert met, or why they married, but within their relationship, Anne was largely acquiescent to Hubert’s wishes. Currently, the two are estranged. Anne is aware of many of Hubert’s criminal acts, and has suggested that this is the only reason why Hubert treats her with anything approaching kindness.

Juliette


On multiple occasions, Anne has attested to the close relationship shared by Hubert and Juliette throughout the latter’s life. Although Hubert and Juliette came into conflict on occasion, notably over Juliette’s dalliances with Assane, the two maintained their bond until 2020, with Hubert seemingly mentoring Juliette to take over the company due to his advancing age. Even so, Hubert frequently demonstrated manipulative behavior towards Juliette in order to keep her on his side. Eventually, prodded by Assane, Juliette received the truth from her mother about Hubert’s illegal activities, which led to her turning on him.

Gabriel Dumont
After realizing that the then-Inspector Dumont was about to discover his insurance scam, Hubert manipulated him into appeasement by pointedly mentioning his powerful connections and making vague threats against Dumont's wife. This began a close working relationship between the two, with Hubert seemingly having helped Dumont achieve his role as commissioner. As a result of this, Hubert was able to maintain his strong links with the police department throughout Dumont’s tenure in the position.



Dumont worked closely with Hubert in order to take down Assane. He assisted Hubert with his plan to hold Raoul hostage at the Hyatt hotel, restricted the evidence in Assane’s apartment to himself and Romain Laugier alone, and sent his officers to Benjamin Férel’s shop after learning of its location. Hubert’s seeming infallibility kept the commissioner firmly in his orbit, right up to the moment when the pair were arrested together after Assane managed to outsmart them.

Léonard Koné
Hubert seems to have first encountered Léonard when he hired him to kill Babakar Diop in prison in 1995. By 2020, Léonard was was Hubert’s first port of call when he wanted somebody murdered. At Hubert’s instructions, Léonard hanged Fabienne Bériot and tried to off Assane as well; upon failing to do this, he kidnapped Raoul instead. Hubert, however, was shocked by this turn of events and decided that Léonard’s failure to do away with Assane would cost him his own life. Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, Hubert had Léonard strangled to death and framed Assane for the crime.

Other
Hubert maintains a number of other significant associations; for example, he is close with the unprincipled undercover policeman Pascal Oblet, who eventually becomes a replacement of sorts for the deceased Léonard, as well as Albert Fontan, the minister of the interior, who used his powers to get Hubert released from police custody following his first arrest.



Due to his wealth and assets, Hubert has made use of stockbrokers. He had a longstanding business relationship with Lucas Lacroix, but when he was informed by Lacroix of the arrival of a newer, more daring broker named Philippe Courbet, he was quick to switch the unfortunate old timer for the young upstart.

Babakar Diop
Hubert has maintained a consistently antagonistic relationship with the Diop family across three generations, starting with Babakar, whom he hired in 1995, ostensibly as his chauffeur but with the ulterior motive of framing him for the theft of the Queen’s Necklace. Although Babakar was a model employee, Hubert frequently treated him a cruel, derisive and occasionally outright racist manner. He felt little remorse about sending Babakar to prison, and, worried about Babakar continuing to fight his unjust sentencing from his cell, he decided to deal with the problem by having Léonard murder him.

Fabienne Bériot
In the 1990s, the person who came the closest to taking Hubert down was undoubtedly Fabienne Bériot. When Fabienne published her exposé on the Pellegrini business empire, however, Hubert was able to use his team of lawyers to sue her for defamation. The resulting controversy ensured that Fabienne would never work again, which threw her into a deep depression. A revitalized Fabienne appeared in Hubert’s life once again in late fall 2020, after she had teamed up with Assane. This time, Hubert took no chances, and she was ultimately killed by Léonard in the same manner in which he had murdered Babakar.

Assane


Hubert did not foresee that his actions towards Babakar would earn him a permanent enemy in the form of the chauffeur’s son. Driven by his sense of outrage and indignation over the way the Pellegrinis had behaved towards his father, Assane vowed to get even with them; this desire became all-consuming after Assane learned that Babakar had not stolen the Queen’s Necklace.

However, Hubert was initially able to use his associations to keep Assane at bay. When Assane threatened to expose him on The Other Edition, Hubert's relationship with the show's host ensured that he managed to erase significant portions of footage from the tape that Assane was planning to use as evidence. To prevent any further incidents, Hubert wanted to have Assane killed, just as he had done with Babakar and Fabienne, but unlike them Assane managed to evade Léonard, who kidnapped Raoul instead. After this entire episode, Hubert was no closer to catching Assane than he was before, much to his annoyance. Furthermore, unbeknownst to Hubert, Assane had convinced Juliette to turn on him, which eventually led to his first arrest.

After he was released from custody, however, Hubert regained the upper hand in his battle against Assane. He gave the police Assane’s real name and was able to have Léonard killed in Assane’s apartment while framing Assane for the crime. Although Hubert correctly predicted that Assane would crash his daughter’s concert at the Théâtre du Châtelet, he was not prepared when Assane entered his personal box and extracted a full confession from him at knifepoint.

Appearances

 * Part One


 * Chapter 1
 * Chapter 2
 * Chapter 3
 * Chapter 4
 * Chapter 5


 * Part Two


 * Chapter 6
 * Chapter 7
 * Chapter 8
 * Chapter 9
 * Chapter 10


 * Part Three


 * Chapter 7

Quotes
"All this is a game, Inspector. A game with rules...and I make them."

- Hubert convinces Dumont to help him frame Babakar

"France is a country that one can be proud of. Our economy and our culture are envied and copied. Our influence over the world remains strong. And yet, for some time now, certain people have tried to damage the image of our country, and those, like myself, who love and defend it."

- Hubert at his press conference

"He wants to destroy us. But I won’t let him."

- Hubert talks to Juliette about Assane's intentions

"One thing that I learned in business is that you always need a backup plan."

- Hubert to Dumont

"The question isn't if he'll come, but when."

- Hubert speculates on Assane's appearance at Juliette's charity concert

Trivia

 * Hubert, his wife Anne and his assassin Léonard are the only characters to be portrayed by the same actors in both the 1995 flashbacks and the present timeline.
 * Following his defamation lawsuit against Fabienne Bériot, Hubert became the majority shareholder at The Objector.
 * Hubert has been the CEO of the Pellegrini Group since 1991. He was preceded by Enzo Pellegrini (likely his father). The company was founded by Luigi Pellegrini in 1926.