By Tim Hepher and Emmanuel Jarry

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - President Nicolas Sarkozy wound up a state visit to China on Tuesday buoyed by record deals for French firms, but unable to shake more than a deadpan response out of Beijing on jitters over currencies and the environment.

Sarkozy challenged China to play its part in tackling the problem of global warming after repeatedly urging Beijing to play its full part as a global power.

"I am proposing that China joins a new global pact, an ecological and economic New Deal," he told students in Beijing.

The scheme is seen as a bid to exchange clean technology and other incentives for Chinese participation in a post-Kyoto global pact that would impose cuts in its choking pollution.

It was one of a series of pragmatic trade-offs floated in a visit that saw Sarkozy link progress on climate and the weak yuan with French help on gaining improved access to Europe's market economy and membership of an expanded G8, officials said.

France wants China to allow its managed yuan currency to rise against the euro to reduce a record European Union trade deficit with China that threatens domestic French jobs.

Sarkozy hammered on the strength of the euro, telling French business leaders on a swing through Shanghai that the United States and Japan should also act to reduce economic imbalances.

"We won't be able to steady exchange rates alone," he said.