- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday May 29 2001 01.24 BST
But if Mr Jospin's refusal to back a greater pooling of sovereignty inside the EU will please Labour, some of his other ideas - ranging from a eurozone economic government, a binding social treaty, to corporate tax harmonisation and a European public prosecutor's office - will be rejected by Tony Blair.
William Hague seized on Mr Jospin's remarks as a sign of an integration project across Europe. The Tory leader said the speech exposed the critical battle at the heart of the election, adding that it was a great embarrassment for Labour.
Mr Blair said he rejected tax harmonisation, saying: "We have won this argument every time it has been raised in Europe." But he added: "Unfair tax competition is another matter. That prevents the single market working properly."
Mr Jospin said a proposal by the German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, under which the EU council of ministers - the institution that represents national governments - would be turned into a chamber of the European parliament, was unacceptable.
"France, like other European nations, could not accept such a status nor such a concept of what a federation is," he said. "I want Europe, but I remain attached to my nation. Making Europe without unmaking France, or any other European nation - that is my political choice."
The speech to the Foreign Press Association in Paris was his first major contribution to the European debate since he took office in 1997, and followed keynote statements over the past year by Mr Schröder, President Jacques Chirac and Mr Blair.
But despite suggestions for institutional reforms, he made it clear that what interested him was not the architecture of the new Europe, but the type of society it would encourage. "Europe is first of all an enterprise of the spirit, a model of society, a vision of the world," Mr Jospin said.
"There is a European 'art of living', our own way of behaviour, of defending liberties, fighting against inequality and discrimination, thinking and organising working relations."
It is this vision of a social and cultural role for Europe - a united counterweight to the unfettered free-market policies of the US and, to a lesser extent, Britain - that is most likely to put Mr Jospin at odds with Mr Blair.
Mr Jospin said the future EU needed more economic coordination and solidarity, with an "economic government" of the eurozone. Corporate tax harmonisation should be an immediate priority.
"It is unacceptable for certain member states to practise tax dumping to attract international investment," he said.
Farming subsidies, the largest single component of EU finances and the one from which Paris has traditionally benefited most, should not be "renationalised" to individual member states, he insisted in reference to a German proposal. His stance will disappoint Labour.
Enhanced social solidarity, however, should lead to a full-blown European social treaty, Mr Jospin insisted, with the charter of fundamental rights, adopted at the Nice summit last December, being the "cornerstone" of EU construction.
He called for a European directive guaranteeing "strong and efficient public services", a pan-European police force, the harmonisation of criminal law and, eventually, an EU public prosecutor - issues likely to cause controversy in Britain.
