Jerome Kerviel, the French rogue trader who brought one of Europe's biggest banks to the verge of ruin with nearly €5 billion in losses, left prison this morning after winning conditional release.
Under the terms of his release, Kerviel, 37, will be obliged to wear an electronic tagging bracelet at all times and stay at home every workday evening.
He left Fleury Merogis prison, south of Paris, after less than five months following his high-profile conviction and imprisonment for breach of trust, forgery and entering false data.
The ex-trader brought banking giant Société Générale to its knees in 2008 with wildly risky trades of up to €50 billion on derivatives - betting on the market direction.
Kerviel became something of a cause celebre in France and overseas with many saying he had been set up as a scapegoat for the failings of the wider financial system.
The trader himself said he was ashamed of his former profession and embarked on a two-month trek through Italy to protest the "tyranny of the markets," even winning an audience with Pope Francis.
Kerviel will have to wear the bracelet until June 26 next year and his movements are restricted. He must be at home between 8.30pm and 7.00am between Monday to Friday.
His lawyer has said previously Kerviel has secured a job at an IT consultancy firm and hopes to resume "a completely normal life."
Kerviel never denied making huge gambles. "My daily existence was about making money for the bank. That was my only objective, at any price, regardless of all moral or ethical considerations," he said before.
Despite dealing in such vast sums of money, he was on a relatively modest €50,000 basic salary when the scandal erupted in January 2008. He lived in an unremarkable, small suburban flat and took the train to Brittany in the holidays to visit his widowed mother.
"I am an ordinary person. I'm not crazy," he said during investigations into the scandal. "I didn't earn millions and I didn't drive a Porsche," he had said.
