"The general situation concerning human rights was brought up Thursday night during the dinner between Hu Jintao and Mr Chirac. A list of names had been given to Chinese authorities," a source with Chirac's delegation to China said.
It was not immediately clear whom the people mentioned on the list were, or how their rights had been violated in China.
After arriving to Beijing on Wednesday for a four-day visit, Chirac singled out China's attitude on human rights as a particular area of concern for the country's leaders as they look ahead to hosting the 2008 Olympics.
He said the Beijing Games would lead to both "economic and social repercussions" for China's rulers as the host city becomes the focus of world attention.
"China will have to come to terms with these realities, particularly the problems related to humans rights," Chirac said.
Chirac told reporters that the two nations had agreed to advance their bilateral human rights dialogue.
In one of the latest high profile cases to darken China's human rights record, a young Tibetan nun was killed last month when Chinese guards opened fire on a group of around 70 people who tried to cross from Tibet to Nepal.
The incident was caught on video by a Romanian television cameraman who was in the area filming a mountain climbing expedition.
A senior French official said on Wednesday the Tibetan incident was "lamentable."

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2006