The Government has flatly dismissed the latest French call for EU tax harmonisation, insisting that Ireland will resist all efforts to force a rise in the Republic's low tax on business.
After Mr Jospin indirectly accused Ireland of unfair competition to attract international investment, a Government spokesman last night defended the State's corporation tax regime.
"Our European partners are coming more in step with what we are doing, rather than what Mr Jospin wants us to do," the spokesman said.
The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, yesterday echoed the Government's sharp response, saying the argument on tax harmonisation was one his government had won "every time it has been raised" in the EU.
The Government response comes as the Nice Treaty referendum campaign moves into its last 10 days. The Coalition is anxious not to give campaigners against the treaty any reason to claim sovereignty is being ceded to Brussels.
The robustness of the Government reaction also reflects the considerable tensions that arose at Nice in December between the Taoiseach and the French Prime Minister over tax harmonisation.
At Nice, Mr Ahern and Mr Blair successfully resisted modest proposals on tax harmonisation. But Mr Jospin yesterday returned to his campaign in comments to cabinet ministers, French parliamentary deputies and journalists assembled at the Foreign Press Centre in Paris.
In what was clearly a reference to Ireland, he declared: "It is not acceptable for certain member-states to practise unfair tax competition in order to attract international investment and offshore headquarters of European groups."
He said that "ultimately, the corporate tax system as a whole will have to be harmonised".
However, the Government spokesman accused Mr Jospin and the French government of "still pursuing the agenda they pursued and failed to get through with their colleagues on the European Council. The Taoiseach made clear at Nice his views on this type of tax harmonisation and Mr Jospin's attempts were rejected by the European Council at the Nice Summit".
In his comments in Paris, Mr Jospin also called for "economic government of the euro zone", a proposal that continues to anger the British who, as non-euro members, resist any suggestion that there be new structures established excluding them from any aspect of EU decision-making.
Indeed, Mr Jospin's call for "economic government" of the euro-zone fanned the flames of Mr William's Hague's countdown to save sterling on June 7th.
The British Conservative leader claimed Mr Jospin's call for "a federation of nation states" and greater harmonisation of corporate tax rates revealed Labour's "agenda" for closer European integration and would prove "a great embarrassment" for Mr Blair.