Geneva  - Days after a French minister said Paris had obtained confidential data from Switzerland on some 3,000 bank accounts, Bern was on Monday still declining to confirm the report.

In an interview with a French weekly published over the weekend, French Budget Minister Eric Woerth said his government had received the names of the thousands of account holders "of which a part is very likely linked to tax evasion."

Speaking to the Journal du Dimanche he said the accounts, belonging to people living in France, were at three Swiss banks and worth 3 billion euros (4.3 billion dollars).

"This is the first time we have such information," the minister said about what appeared to be mostly undeclared accounts, calling it "exceptional."

He said France would bring to justice those who did not come clean with the authorities before the end of the year.

Swiss President Hans Rudolf Merz declined to answer reporters' questions when exiting a conference on climate change in Geneva and a spokesman for the finance ministry in Bern was unavailable for comment.

Switzerland's banking secrecy has taken hits in 2009, as the country agreed to renegotiate double taxation agreements with other governments with the goal of becoming more transparent and relaxing confidentiality regulations.

UBS, the country's largest bank, has already handed over 250 names to US authorities and recently agreed to transfer data on at least 4,500 more accounts within a year. The bank admitted its employees tried to help clients evade paying taxes.

Last week, Merz and French Economics Minister Christine Lagarde signed a revised tax treaty which conforms to the transparency criteria of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development - a think tank for the world's developed economies.

The Alpine land has signed three such new deals, with a goal of signing a dozen, in order to have itself removed from an OECD "grey list" of so-called tax havens.

The financial crisis has pushed OECD members to crack down on tax evasion, leading many major off-shore centres to renegotiate their bilateral agreements. (dpa)