St Jerome

摘要

As the prison doors closed this week be-hind the perpetrator of France's biggest trading scam, it was finance, not the fraudster, in the dock of public opinion. On foot and toting a backpack, Jerome Kerviel crossed from Italy into France on Sunday night, accompanied by a priest, other well-wishers and a host of photographers. In March France's highest court of appeal upheld his conviction for forgery and breach of trust related to the unauthorised trading positions he took until early 2008 that lost his employer, Societe Generale, €4.9 billion ($7.2 billion). Since then he had been walking north from Rome to protest against the "tyranny" of financial markets in which he says he now regrets ever participating. Mr Kerviel had until midnight to turn himself in to begin a three-year prison sentence. He just made it.