The United Nations war crimes tribunal in the Hague accuses troops under his command of killing Serb civilians and plundering their property in 1995.
A spokeswoman for chief Hague prosecutor Carla del Ponte confirmed Gotovina had criminal convictions. "He has a few sentences against him in France," she said. "We have the judgements. We knew about the criminal record of Ante Gotovina prior to the cases we have initiated.
"It was not something that was top secret," she said. "We can just say that we are surprised that it was not known in the (Balkan) region earlier."
Gotovina disappeared in July 2001 after The Hague indicted him. Del Ponte blasted Croatia this week for failing to arrest the former general, widely believed to be hiding in Croatia.
In the bluntest warning to date, foreign Minister Adam Rotfeld of EU-member Poland said on Thursday Zagreb's EU negotiations would not start on March 17, as scheduled, unless Gotovina was handed over to the tribunal by that time.
Jutarnji List published facsimiles of three Paris court sentences passed between 1986 and 1995, for a total of nine and a half years' imprisonment, which Gotovina never served.
The Croatian government was informed of Gotovina's criminal record a year ago but never saw court documents, it said.
Justice Minister Vesna Skare Ozbolt said France never asked for the extradition of Gotovina, who also has a French passport.
In her report to EU leaders this week, del Ponte criticised Zagreb for tacitly approving Gotovina's "hero" status and disregarding his criminal past.
Croatia never mounted a large-scale manhunt for the fugitive general. The only photographs of Gotovina displayed in Croatia have been on admiring posters and calendars.