Rogue trader Jerome Kerviel, who has spent two months walking from Rome to protest "the tyranny of the markets", has returned to France at midnight where he is due to start a three-year prison term.
"I am walking and I am going back to France," Kerviel said after leaving his hotel in the Italian border town of Ventimiglia dressed in hiker's clothing and a backpack.
The 37-year-old, who brought one of Europe's biggest banks, France's Societe Generale, to the brink of bankruptcy in 2008, casts himself as a simple soul caught up in an orgy of greed.
He spent the last two nights in Ventimiglia, refusing to return to serve his sentence until President Francois Hollande intervened in his case.
But as the clocked ticked down to the midnight deadline at which he had to check into a French police station, he took up his trek again, remaining cagey on whether he planned to show up for the appointment.
But at the Menton border crossing Kerviel was met by two French police officers in plain clothes who whisked him away by car.
"The fight will go on no matter what happens," Kerviel had told journalists earlier, before stopping at a church and a pizzeria surrounded by dozens of supporters of the fresh-faced man who has become an unlikely hero to some critics of the banking system.
"I have never been a fugitive, I have always taken responsibility for my actions."
The former trader says he is not seeking a pardon, but has asked Hollande to grant immunity to potential witnesses who could testify in his favour.
Kerviel said he wanted to detail to Hollande "the serious failings" that led to his conviction, following the loss of 4.9 billion euros ($6.7 billion) through wildly risky trades.
Contacted by AFP, Hollande's office said no meeting was on the agenda and stressed that the president would "respect the decisions taken by French courts".
"I will present myself to the first police officer I see," Kerviel said as he neared the border, accompanied by supporters and cameras.
"I have not lost, I've spent a beautiful day with people close to me, I'm happy, I'm free, I'll turn myself in to the police and the authorities."
It was unclear what made him change his mind and head towards the border.
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