* FTSE 100 firms 0.2 percent
* Vodafone gains 1.3 percent on SFR deal
* Technicals bullish on UK blue chips
By Tricia Wright
LONDON, April 4 (Reuters) - Merger and acquisition activity on both sides of the Atlantic boosted investor morale on Monday, helping Britain's top shares higher, with Vodafone up on a deal to sell its stake in French telecom operator SFR.
By 0839 GMT, the FTSE 100 was up 11.27 points, or 0.2 percent, at 6,021.19, having hit a nearly six-week closing high on Friday after solid U.S. jobs data.
Vodafone was among the top blue-chip gainers, up 1.3 percent, as the market welcomed its move to sell its 44 percent stake in SFR for 7.75 billion euros ($11.02 billion) to Vivendi .
"M&A is certainly helping sentiment," Keith Bowman, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said.
"(Vodafone) have got good value for what they held. Competition in the French market is set to increase, so a lot of people are seeing the timing on Vodafone's part as good."
In other merger and acquisition news, Nasdaq OMX and IntercontinentalExchange bid $11.3 billion for NYSE Euronext in an effort to trump Deutsche Boerse's deal.
Aggreko was the standout FTSE 100 riser, up 4.6 percent, as the temporary power provider prepares to ship gas and diesel generators to Japan which will provide emergency electricity supplies to the grid from June.
TECHNICALS BULLISH
Investor risk appetite, which has been subdued by fears over the euro zone debt crisis, political turmoil in the Arab world, and the aftermath of the earthquake in Japan, has seen some improvement after Friday's solid U.S. nonfarm payrolls data.
The All-Share index jumped back above its 50-day moving average on Friday and, over the week as a whole, sector participation was "encouraging" with all 10 FTSE industry groups ahead, led by basic materials, Altium Securities said in a note.
"Concerns remain however: trading volumes need to revive on a consistent basis while the degree of global central bank support for the recovery cannot be sustained indefinitely, as will become clearer during the week," the broker said.
The European Central Bank is expected to raise interest rates on Thursday, with bets increasing that the Bank of England as well as the U.S. Federal Reserve will follow suit.
Sandy Jadeja, chief technical analyst at City Index, said that momentum on the FTSE 100 from a technical point of view is "still bullish, but looking a little bit overstretched, which could suggest sideways movement".
He pointed to a resistance area at 6,050 to 6,117, adding that the index needs to hold above 5,908, a level which, if broken, could see the index come down to 5,845, or 5,804.
The pace of activity in Britain's construction sector slowed only marginally in March from February's eight-month high, a monthly purchasing managers' survey showed.
The Markit/CIPS construction PMI index eased to 56.4 in March from 56.5 in February. Analysts polled by Reuters poll had forecast a steeper fall to 54.9. (Additional reporting by David Brett and Simon Jessop; Editing by Hans Peters) ($1=.7031 Euro)