BRUSSELS - French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned on Saturday of a “systemic crisis” in the eurozone, as he and fellow European leaders sought to bolster the under-pressure common currency.

“This crisis is systemic, the response must be systemic,” the French leader said after a late night eurozone summit initially dedicated to the Greek debt crisis but transformed into much wider considerations of how to defend the common European currency.

“We are now at the stage of community mechanism, it is the whole eurozone that needs to defend itself,” through “general moblisation,” he added, after the 16 heads of state and government agreed on the need of a common emergency fund available to all member states.

Sarkozy stressed the need for “real economic government” for the euro nations, in order to ease the stresses on the currency from fiscal policies pulling in different directions.

“There is no doubt that the eurozone is going through the most serious crisis since its creation,” he underlined.

The eurozone leaders decided to call a meeting of finance ministers from all 27 EU nations for Sunday to finalise the shape and the funding for the unprecedented “European Stabilisation mechanism” fund.

“On Monday when markets open, Europe will be ready to defend the euro,” he told reporters.

“We can’t let the euro fall. The euro is Europe and Europe is peace,” he stressed.

Sarkozy denied a row with German Chancellor Angela Merkel during the summit in Brussels; “there was no division between Angela Merkel and me this evening,”he said, “the Franco-German axis is indestructible.”