After six years of trying to avoid justice, the prison doors have finally closed on rogue trader Jér

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After six years of trying to avoid justice, the prison doors have finally closed on rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel. But as his tumultuous journey comes to an end, it s difficult to assess the impact of the man s convoluted legacy
To some, Jérôme Kerviel g2 is a modern day Robin Hood a capitalist villain turned socialist crusader. After spending years in the warming glow of his own media circus, the former French trader g2 has established a cult-like fan base that worships him as some sort of people s weapon against g2 financial tyranny.
Yet to most, Kerviel is nothing more than a common, white-collar criminal. From his work station in the back rooms of French powerhouse Société Générale, the junior trader ran up some 50bn in unauthorised trades and by manipulating the system and betting against the odds, Kerviel brought his employer to the brink of destruction. Société Générale nearly sank after reporting losses of 4.9bn , and European markets went into complete and utter disarray. Inevitable calls for justice g2 ensued. Yet the fanatical sideshow that followed has only served to make Kerviel s story all the more extraordinary.
Despite losing appeal after appeal against Société Générale, Kerviel has always insisted he was a victim a man of humble beginnings that had been corrupted by a severely flawed financial system. His former employers scoffed at the very notion; however, his defence has plucked some heartstrings among the French public. Even politicians appear to sympathise with the plight of history s single-largest trade fraudster. Far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon has likened Kerviel to Alfred Dreyfus , the man who suffered France s most famous miscarriage of justice. Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, Front National leader Marine Le Pen has conceded it s a little farfetched to hold just one man accountable for the faults of an entire financial institution. Perhaps it was this muddled base of support that convinced g2 37-year-old Kerviel to seek out Pope Francis in the wake of his convictions, and set off on a long and arduous pilgrimage to imprisonment.
A pat on the back There was likely a time when Jérôme Kerviel wouldn t have relished any degree of notoriety. He was raised in a small town in Brittany, where his mother was a hairdresser and his father was a blacksmith. He attended university g2 in Nantes, and went on to earn a Masters of Finance at Lyon, specialising in organisation and control markets. Kerviel s professors said he was an unremarkable student, kept his head down and did as he was told. Yet because of the university s reputation among French banks for producing great middle and back office traders, Kerviel easily happened g2 upon a junior role at Société Générale in 2000. He was given his first shot in the firm s middle office, where he was handed the relatively mundane g2 task of entering the details of others trades. Yet in doing so, he learned the ins and outs of the firm s computer system including how it could be manipulated.
Yet fraud was hardly the first thing on Kerviel s mind. In his spare time, the backroom employee indulged in hobbies like judo and armchair politics. In 2001, the Mayor of Pont l’Abbé, Thierry Mavic, even convinced Kerviel to stand for a seat on his local municipal council. Kerviel lost the election, and decided to bury himself g2 in work instead. At the time, Société Générale s trading arm was expanding rapidly and Kerviel said he was forced to double his efforts in order to keep up with the young men from better schools. Eventually, he began pulling 18-hour work days, and ended up giving up hobbies like politics and martial arts. Yet his hard work started paying off.
After nearly five years worth of all-nighters, Kerviel was finally promoted to a spot on Société Générale s bustling trading desk, Delta One. The move was huge for Kerviel, but his workload as a junior trader was to be fairly monotonous. Kerviel was instructed to arbitrate small price differences between derivative g2 contracts in order to earn modest amounts g2 of money based on tiny margins. Bosses were alleged to have made quite clear Kerviel wasn t to take bets on market decisions. Yet just a few weeks on the job, Kerviel unknowingly turned heads at the bank by winning big on a small, routine position. After terrorists struck London in July 2007, Kerviel decided to gamble against German insurer Allianz. He got the call right, and brought in a cool (and unexpected) 500,000. Kerviel s supervisors gave the junior trader a rare pat on the back for his win and, according to Kerviel, that