Cahuzac, a successful cosmetic surgeon who specialised in hair transplants, has been given a three year prison sentence by a court in Paris, while his ex-wife, Patricia Menard, was also jailed for two years for tax fraud.

He made his fortune in the 1990s with a string of celebrity and political clients for treatments for baldness, and then moved into the political arena himself.

Cahuzac was named budget minister in 2012 and became well known for speaking out against the use of overseas tax havens by the wealthy. However, he resigned in 2013 after it emerged he had held an undeclared Swiss bank account with containing about €600,000 (£460,000) for over 20 years and then lied about it.

The court was told Cahuzac and Menard moved their profits from the lucrative hair transplant business across the world from Switzerland to Singapore and the Isle of Man. When an investigative website revealed the existence of his Swiss account, Cahuzac mounted a furious denial of the claims over many months, which included telling the French parliament he had never had money in Switzerland and making television appearance to deny the allegations.

When he finally admitted his offshore activities in a public confession in April 2013, Cahuzac he had been ‘caught in a spiral of lies’.

The court was told the couple had about €3.5m in secret accounts, including the Swiss one. Menard kept €2.7m in an Isle of Man account, while about €240,000 was paid into accounts belonging to Cahuzac's mother.