* March shortfall unexpectedly widens from Feb
* Rise in imports, exports points to economic pickup
* Q1 trade deficit narrows y/y
* Q1 budget deficit also falls
(Recasts, adds quotes)
By Crispian Balmer
PARIS, May 7 (Reuters) - France's trade deficit widened unexpectedly in March, the customs office said on Friday, though a rise in both imports and exports suggested the economy was finally moving up a gear.
The trade deficit in the euro zone's second largest economy widened to 4.73 billion euros ($6.35 billion) in March from 3.6 billion in February, well above a consensus estimate of 3.45 billion by analysts polled by Reuters. [ID:nLDE64526B]
Imports rose 5.5 percent to 36.11 billion euros, pushed higher by rising energy prices, while exports increased 2.5 percent to 31.38 billion.
It was the strongest reading for imports since November 2008 and the best score for exports since December 2008.
"France has, at last, started to benefit from the global recovery," said Dominique Barbet, a senior economist at bank BNP Paribas.
For the first quarter of 2010, France's trade deficit narrowed to 11.85 billion euros from 12.31 billion in the first three months of 2009, with exports up 5.2 percent and imports rising 3.4 percent.
The strong quarterly performance for exports was greatly helped by a jump in the sale of transport goods, the customs office said, up 7.4 percent quarter-on-quarter after a 6 percent drop in the last three months of 2009.
An increase in deliveries of Airbus planes played a large part, with its sales totalling 4.66 billion euros in the first three months of the year, including 1.68 billion in March.
Q1 GDP SEEN FRAGILE
"Even if the trade deficit is widening, it always good news if exports are going up," said Alexander Law of chief economist of French research firm Xerfi.
"It seems to be quite broad-based, apart from for capital goods. That suggests that international trade is picking up, but is not getting back to normal and that investment in Europe is still quite low," he added.
France is due to issue March industrial production data next Monday and preliminary first quarter gross domestic product figures on Wednesday.
Despite signs of a pick up in industrial output, consumer spending, which is one of the main motors of the economy, has been depressed in the January-March period.
Analysts polled by Reuters have forecast quarter-on-quarter GDP growth of 0.3 percent, but Xerfi's Law said it might come in slightly beneath that.
"I think GDP is going to be something of a damp squib. I don't see much in terms of strength in growth," he said.
The recent weakness in the euro, fuelled by the Greek debt crisis, was expected to lift French exports in the coming months, but with just under half of French trade taking place with euro zone partners, the room for a big bounce is limited.
In other data released on Friday, the budget ministry said its deficit narrowed to 28.88 billion euros in the first quarter of 2010 from 46.32 billion in the same period last year. [ID:nPAB008341]
The ministry said this improvement was mainly due to a jump in corporate tax returns. In the first quarter of 2009, companies were exempted from certain taxes as part of a government stimulus package to prop up the economy.
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer; editing by James Mackenzie, John Stonestreet)