PARIS: Former French budget minister Jerome Cahuzac, whose brief in government was to crack down on tax dodgers, was sentenced to three years in prison on Thursday for tax fraud and money laundering.
A court in Paris also gave Cahuzac's ex-wife Patricia Menard a two-year prison sentence for her role in stashing millions of euros abroad from the couple's lucrative hair transplant business.
The scandal was the first of a series that tarnished Socialist President Francois Hollande's government and prompted him to order his ministers to disclose their personal wealth, breaking a taboo in France, where the assets of public officials had long been considered a private matter.
Cahuzac, a 64-year-old plastic surgeon by training, initially denied the allegations and sued the Mediapart news website that broke the story in 2012.
Footage of the minister lying to parliament was repeated in an endless loop on French TV news channels after he finally confessed in April 2013, "consumed by remorse", to having a Swiss bank account.
By the end of the trial, Cahuzac had repeatedly admitted his "inexcusable wrongdoing".
He remained motionless when the verdict was read out.
Chief judge Peimane Ghaleh-Marzban said Cahuzac, "who embodied France's tax policy", had committed an offence of "exceptional gravity".
His lawyer Jean Veil said Cahuzac would appeal, arguing that a prison term "was not a suitable punishment" for the crime.
Cahuzac said in evidence that he hid funds offshore to maintain his family's standard of living -- which included buying apartments for his children in London and Paris and paying for holidays in Mauritius.
The court also handed down a one-year suspended prison sentence and a 375,000-euro ($405,000) fine to Francois Reyl, a Swiss banker, for assisting the couple.
His bank, Reyl, was fined 1.87 million euros for money laundering.