Youssef Guedira

Youssef Guedira is a main character in the first part of Lupin. He is portrayed by Soufiane Guerrab.

Guedira is a detective in the Paris police force. After the theft of Marie-Antoinette's necklace, he is the first to recognize that the culprit was inspired by Arsène Lupin, although his ideas are not taken seriously by his colleagues.

Part 1
Guedira is one of the police officers to respond to Kevin, Vincent and Rudy crashing their Ferrari into the Pyramide Inversée at the Louvre. He remarks to his captain, Romain Laugier, that the situation reminds him of an Arsène Lupin story. After the necklace the the police had recovered is discovered to be a fake, the businessman who had bought it, "Paul Sernine," becomes the prime suspect. Guedira checks testimony given by Vincent, Kevin and Rudy, and finds that they referred to their accomplice as "Luis Perenna." After realizing that both "Paul Sernine" and "Luis Perenna" are anagrams of "Arsène Lupin," Guedira decides that the crimes have a connection to the Lupin stories. However, Sofia Belkacem discourages him from telling Laugier about this.

After Dumont is kidnapped from City Hall, Guedira is able to locate his phone in Pantin; however, when he, Laugier, Belkacem and several other officers arrive on the scene, they find a van with a case inside it that contains a clown doll and Dumont's phone. After the driver of the van testifies that a man in an orange beanie had paid him to drive around City Hall several times and then got out again. Guedira realizes that Assane and Dumont never left City Hall, noting that this too is reminiscent of an Arsène Lupin story. Although Laugier and Belkacem are initially skeptical, they follow Guedira's hunch and find Dumont in a small dark room in the depths of the building. However, they are too late to catch Assane, who left the scene minutes earlier.

Later, Guedira tells Laugier that he believes that Dumont's kidnapper and the Louvre thief are the same person, pointing out that Dumont had been in charge of the original necklace theft in 1995. Guedira, along with Laugier and Belkacem, presents this thesis to Dumont. To Laugier's annoyance, Guedira begins discussing his Lupin theory, leading Dumont to make fun of him. However, Dumont allows the detectives to begin gathering evidence in support of their proposition. The three begin by making facial reconstructions of "Paul Sernine" based on the testimony of those who remembered him.

When presented with the reconstructions, Dumont points out that they all look different from one another. He claims that none of them (including a highly accurate portrait made with the help of Vincent, one of the three men who were arrested during the Louvre heist) are his kidnapper, and tells them to stop trying to connect the events. He threatens to kick the team off the case; as an added punishment for being the driving force behind the theory, he removes Guedira from the team and gives him paperwork to do instead.

Guedira is not convinced that Dumont is telling the truth about the identity of his kidnapper, noticing that he had seemed to recognize Vincent's reconstruction. He tells Laugier and Belkacem of his suspicions; Belkacem admits that something is not right. Laugier, on the other hand, reminds Guedira that he has been dropped from the team, and warns him not to cause any more trouble.

Later, as he is filling out paperwork, Guedira watches The Other Edition, and figures out that beneath the wrinkles and large, greying beard, "Salvator" is the same person as "Sernine" and "Perenna." The next morning, Guedira wakes up to find a notification on his phone telling him that it is Maurice Leblanc's bithday, and that a celebratory Arsène Lupin festival is being held in the Norman town of Étretat, where Leblanc had lived. On a hunch, he calls in sick and heads to Normandy. In Étretat, Guedira sees Assane, who along with Claire is searching in vain for their kidnapped son. He walks up behind Assane and says, "Lupin?"

Personality and relationships
Guedira is intelligent and insightful, but he tends to come across as being lost in his mind or even obsessive, to the point where his co-worker Sofia Belkacem comments that he looks permanently ill. His most notable trait is his ability draw from unexpected sources in order to build his theories. Guedira’s big-picture thinking gives him a desire to link all of the crimes he and his colleagues are investigating into a single unified theory. Unlike them, he is not inclined to dismiss the seemingly whimsical, and is thus able to spot what they have missed. This ultimately allows him to connect the dots regarding Assane’s source of inspiration--particularly since, like Assane, Guedira is an Arsène Lupin aficionado, even keeping copies of the Lupin stories at his desk.

Although Guedira is generally not confrontational and is able to take criticism and teasing in stride, his need to prove that he is right about the Arsène Lupin connection leads to conflict with his fellow detectives. Laugier and Belkacem, exasperated with his behavior, advise him to drop these lines of research, and Dumont, fearing that he may be too near the truth, removes him from the necklace case entirely.

Despite this reception, Guedira does not waver from his beliefs, as he is convinced he is correct, and continues to quietly build his case after being assigned stacks of paperwork to do. He is shown to be impulsive on occasion, notably demonstrated by his decision to skip work and visit Étretat entirely on a hunch that Assane would be there.

Of the other pollice officers, Guedira appears to be closest with Belkacem. He is seen using her as a sounding board for his ideas, and it is she whom he contacts to claim that he is sick on the day of the festival in Étretat.

Appearances

 * Part One


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

Quotes
"The pseudonyms used--Paul Sernine and Luis Perenna--both are anagrams of Arsène Lupin. And then the method, the panache, the style, the talent. I really think that the suspect is playing at being Arsène Lupin."

- Guedira presents his theory

"He’s Assane’s counterpart, really. If you forget they’re on opposite sides of the law, they’re both just Arsène Lupin geeks!"

- Omar Sy on Guedira

Trivia

 * According to Omar Sy, Guedira is based on the character of Inspector Ganimard from the original Arsène Lupin stories.