Heisty!
In which Zohran, "Doudou Cross Bitume," and Nicolas Sarkozy do (or do not) make off with the bag 💰💰💰
TURN THE VOLUME UP on this newsletter. Zohran Mamdani is the next mayor of New York City. This, contrary to the expectations of billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who tweeted, “There are hundreds of million[s] of dollars of capital available to back a competitor to Mamdani that can be put together overnight,” as well as billionaire donors to the largest PAC ever created in a New York City mayoral election. Mamdani’s victory wasn’t so much a heist as one of the most disciplined and resourceful campaigns in American political memory, but it beggars the idea that Democrats have to tack neutral to win and it snatches back the resources from a loot-hoarding class in a city where pay gains for high earners have outpaced those of low earners in recent years. While we’re on the subject of inequality, this month I will donate all proceeds from new subscriptions to Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard in my hometown of Wilmington, N.C., where 45,000 people—9.4% of the area population—rely on SNAP benefits to feed their families properly. Everyone deserves to eat, and eat well. Why is this even a discussion?
Here in France, a “former social media star” known as “Doudou Cross Bitume” did not quite pull off the job. (The nickname is hilariously impossible to translate, but it’s something like “Concrete Motorbiking Binky.”) Back in the late 2000s, Doudou was known for his exploits in the world of urban motorcross. He made a name posting videos of himself popping wheelies on the Champs-Élysées and in front of the Eiffel Tower. If French investigators are to believed, he more recently zoomed through the Louvre’s Apollon Gallery, making off with 88 million euros in jewels. According to Le Parisien, Doudou told investigators that he had no idea he was robbing the Louvre, “thinking that the museum was located only on the side of the glass pyramid.” I regret to inform you that the Hot Louvre Thieves are not real.
Then there’s Nicolas Sarkozy, who didn’t quite manage to scramble the money trail demonstrating that the late Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi illegally financed his 2007 presidential campaign. Sarkozy is incarcerated in a nine-square-meter cell at La Santé prison. He told reporters that he was packing three books: two volumes of “The Count of Monte-Cristo” and a biography of Jesus. OK.
I was gonna tell you I stole away to Marseille, but the too many burgling metaphors alarm is going off. After a good day’s reporting, I went to see Pétanque! at the underfunded but overperforming Musée d’Histoire de Marseille. Then I met Alexis and Vérane at Ciccino, which thrilled the New Yorker in me with its dramatic, tryhard decor. (100% A COMPLIMENT.) It also proved that there is at least one decent Martini to be had in ye ole Hexagone. If I could see another exhibition in France? “SUPERBEMARCHÉ – Papiers d’agrumes & Co” at MIAM, the International Museum of Modest Arts, in Sète. (Yep, it’s really a show about the illustrated papers used as packaging for oranges.) Anywhere in the world? “MONUMENTS” at the Brick and MOCA. Until I make it there—how?—I’m hanging on Siddhartha Mitter and Julian Lucas’s every word.
M le Mag visited Turmus Ayya, a village in the occupied West Bank where 85% of residents are dual American-Palestinian citizens. CNN made a documentary about the Simrils and the Simrills—Black and white branches of the same South Carolina family who are trying, together, to work through their complicated history. (The white Simrils added an extra “l” to their name, it seems, to distance themselves from their Black relatives.) What if instead of stigmatizing immigrants, a government chose to acknowledge them as an economic and cultural boon? Spain did and is enjoying a booming economy, with projected growth of 2.6% for 2025.
Mamadou Garanké Diallo came to France from Guinea as a minor in 2019, earned a CAP certificate, and got an apprenticeship at a boucherie in a village called Darnétal. By all accounts, he was thriving there, until the prefecture ordered him out of the country in 2023. His boss the butcher launched a petition to protest his expulsion. “He is a hard-working, courageous, and determined young man, appreciated by our customers, who, like me, cannot understand this absurd situation,” the butcher wrote. Ten thousand people signed. Diallo was temporarily spared, but, in May, he received another expulsion order. He decided to leave France, and died in Dunkerque on September 18th, when he was hit by a truck while trying to cross the Channel to England.
The French Army, by the way, still maintains a squadron of pigeons. The Arnault family is “tearing itself apart” over what to do with Le Parisien. (Keep losing lots of money or sell to the far-right tycoon Vincent Bolloré, with a presidential election coming up in 2027?) I’ll be interviewing Molly Ringwald at the American Library on November 18th. I wrote about crashing a Parisian house party. I cannot recommend “Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy” by Julia Ioffe highly enough. Neither can the National Book Awards, for which it was recently nominated. There’s a whole lot of France slop out there, and Victor coutard’s newsletter, How to Get Lost in France, is a solid antidote. It would be a really nice thing to offer the Francophile in your life. Of course, there’s also Lettre Recommandée. After the jump, we’re getting into more books, restaurants, podcasts, and a few things you might want to offer yourself or your proches as the holidays come barreling up.
