PARIS, April 3 - RAPSI. The former French Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac has admitted that he held a foreign bank account to evade taxes and has been officially charged with tax fraud.

The police began investigating Cahuzac in early 2013 after French investigative news website Mediapart reported that the minister had an account with the Swiss UBS bank, but then later moved the funds to Singapore. The minister resigned on March 19.

Cahuzac said that he had sent letters to two investigating magistrates on March 26 asking them for a meeting, which he was granted on April 2. "I admitted that I had an account and told them that I had ordered the money from that account, about 600,000 euros ($770,000) which I had not touched in about a dozen years, to be transferred to my bank account in Paris," Cahuzac wrote in his official blog.

"I was caught in a spiral of lies and lost my way. I am devastated by guilt," he wrote. He said he is sorry and has asked for forgiveness from the president, the prime minister, his colleagues in the government, as well as his voters and all French citizens.

Cahuzac's lawyer said his client had been officially charged with tax evasion. He told AFP that Cahuzac earned the bulk of his wealth before 2001 when he was a plastic surgeon.

If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison and a EUR 375,000 ($481,500) fine.

Cahuzac is a member of Frances Socialist Party and a vocal opponent of foreign tax havens. He had said in parliament that he did not have and had never had a foreign bank account.