UPDATE 1-France's Sarkozy offers Saudi Arabia nuclear help

(Adds quotes throughout, Total confirms UAE deal)

By Emmanuel Jarry

RIYADH, Jan 14 (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy has offered Saudi Arabia help in developing peaceful nuclear energy at the start of a Gulf tour he hopes will secure billions of dollars in contracts for French firms.

After Saudi Arabia, where he met King Abdullah, Sarkozy was to go to Qatar and then on to the United Arab Emirates where he will sign a nuclear cooperation agreement on Tuesday.

"On technology transfer, the President raised the civilian nuclear issue" with King Abdullah, a source in the French delegation said. Sarkozy said a nuclear team was ready to visit Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks "to study possibilities".

Sarkozy, who has already signed civilian nuclear deals with Arab oil producers Algeria and Libya, has made no secret of his view that all states have a right to atomic power.

"I have often said that the Muslim world does not have less right than the rest of the world to use civilian nuclear power to meet its energy needs in full conformity with the obligations that derive from international law," he told al-Hayat newspaper, a London-based Arabic-language daily.

France's Total (TOTF.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) confirmed on Monday it would develop two third-generation nuclear reactors in the UAE with Suez (LYOE.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) as its main partner and state-owned nuclear reactor maker Areva (CEPFi.PA: Quote, Profile, Research).

The Gulf Cooperation Council -- a loose economic and political alliance of six Gulf Arab states including the UAE -- said last year it was studying a joint nuclear energy programme and has been in touch with the U.N. atomic energy watchdog about cooperating over such a scheme.