Rogue trader breaks his silence and admits: 'I got a little carried away'

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Speaking for the first time about the fraud, Jerome Kerviel, 31, added: "I refuse to be a scapegoat for my bank."

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Jerome Kerviel, pictured yesterday, has insisted he was simply doing his best for the bank

The rogue trader, who had not been seen in public since the scandal, broke his silence after showing up at his lawyer's offices in Paris.

At one stage while working as a £75,000-a-year trader for Societe Generale, France's second biggest bank, Kerviel was gambling up to £37billion - more than his bank's worth and more than the gross national product of Morocco.

It is alleged that he circumvented internal controls with stolen computer access codes and fictitious documents.

Kerviel said, however: "The bank has tried to make out I'm solely responsible for what happened.

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Kerviel, pictured yesterday for the first time since the scandal broke, admitted he got 'a little carried away' but insisted he wouldn't be made the scapegoat for his bank's failures

"I accept my share of responsibility, but I will not be made a scapegoat for Societe Generale."

He said he was "saving his statements for the judges", but insisted he had not acted for personal profit.

"I never had any personal ambition in this affair," he said.

"The aim was to earn money for the bank.

"You lose your sense of the sums involved when you are in this kind of work. It's disembodied. You get a bit carried away."

He rents a flat in Neuilly, an upmarket Paris suburb, but has been lying low with family around the French capital and near his home town of Pont l'Abbe in Brittany.

Smiling broadly, Kerviel said: "I never thought of running away from the law."

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Jerome Kerviel in his lawyer's office yesterday, has been formally put under investigation for breach of trust, falsifying and using falsified documents and breaching IT controls

His losses were revealed by the bank on January 24. He was arrested a few days later but released on bail within 48 hours after being charged with breach of trust, using false documents and unauthorised computer access.

If convicted, Kerviel faces up to three years in prison, and a £500,000 fine.

Societe Generale has accused him of being everything from a financial-arsonist' to a "terrorist".

Kerviel, who wore jeans and a white check shirt, dismissed media reports casting him as unstable.

"I am neither suicidal nor depressive," he added.

During questioning he admitted falsifying company emails to cover his tracks after he started making unauthorised deals in 2005.

He also told investigators, however, that the bank must have known what he was doing because of the profits he had generated previously, and suggested his bosses "turned a blind eye" as long as he was not in the red.