PONT L’ABBE (France): Smart, hard-working, but no troublemaker, residents in Jerome Kerviel’s Breton hometown said on Friday of the 31-year-old linked to the world’s biggest-ever rogue trading scandal.

“My sister went to Paris yesterday (Thursday) after getting a phone call saying the little one was in trouble and that he wasn’t well,” Sylviane Le Goff, the young trader’s aunt, said.

Kerviel is alleged to have lost the French banking giant Societe Generale 4.9 billion euros (7.15 billion dollars), after gambling on trades worth over 53 billion dollars -- more than the bank’s current value.

“She left in a hurry to comfort him. She knew nothing about any of this,” Le Goff said.Like many in Pont l’Abbe, a small town in the Bigouden region of Brittany in western France, Le Goff had trouble believing Kerviel -- described by work colleagues as a shy, hesitant character -- could be behind such a spectacular disaster.

“He has always been a serious young man, who kept to himself. He must have been manipulated. If you want my advice, go and ask his bosses and his employers,” she said.

“He has done absolutely nothing wrong, I am sure of that. He didn’t put a cent in his pocket,” said Le Goff.

“His mother was always proud of him because he is so clever,” added another of the young man’s aunts, Raymonde Kerviel.

Kerviel’s mother’s home, on the edge of town, was shuttered up in her absence. His father died two years ago, his aunts said.

“We have nothing but good things to say about the family,” said the mother of one of Kerviel’s old classmates.

Kerviel, who celebrated his birthday earlier this month, was well-integrated in Pont l’Abbe, a small town of 7,000 inhabitants, running for office on a right-wing municipal list, according to the current mayor Thierry Mavic.

But Le Goff fretted that the media were “soiling” the family’s reputation after a local newspaper put up posters headlining: “A Bigouden at the heart of the scandal.” “It was always an honest family, with nothing to be ashamed of,” she said.

Societe Generale said its trader had used “extremely sophisticated and varied techniques” to cover up massive losses racked up in secret derivatives trades over the past year.

Kerviel, who joined Societe Generale in 2000 and had been on the trading desk since 2005, has been suspended from his job and faces possible criminal charges.

“People don’t believe he’s to blame,” said local newsagent Dominique, drawing an approving nod from a customer.

“It’s the story of the day – it’s what sells,” said her fellow newsagent Thierry Guillemot. “This morning there were more cameras that customers.”

“But it’s hard to take it all seriously, that a young man could lose five billion that way. It’s like something out of a bad movie.”

At the apartment block where he lived in a chic Paris suburb, of which French President Nicolas Sarkozy was once mayor, neighbours said they hardly knew him.

His cv claimed he was keen on sailing and judo, but a former colleague said: “He didn’t stand out at all.”—AFP