Ms Royal, a former junior minister who is seeking to promote her credentials as a potential head of state, brought up human rights in measured terms in a meeting with Wang Jiarui, a senior Communist Party official.

But senior members of the French Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) made fun of Ms Royal’s “Chinese holiday”, noting that she had failed to win meetings with any of China’s top leadership.

Her chief rival in the April elections, Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister and leader of the UMP, was received by President Hu when he visited China.

Ms Royal was seeking to strike a statesman-like balance between her Socialist duty to defend human rights and the need to avoid offending an economic superpower.

President Chirac has made close ties with China a priority during his presidency, visiting four times in 12 years. He has refrained from any direct public criticism of China’s human rights record.

Walking through the Forbidden City with French journalists, Ms Royal said that she deplored the jailing of rights activists and that ties with China should not mean “losing our fundamental values”.

Ms Royal, who is accompanied on her three-day trip by 100 French reporters, met exiled dissidents before leaving Paris, and is holding talks with Chinese environmental, womens’ rights and immigrants’ organisations.

An opinion poll by Ifop yesterday showed Mr Sarkozy, 51, and Ms Royal, 53, level in a hypothetical run-off.

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