EU rescue fund rejected as U.S. bailout advances

* ECB's Trichet, Eurogroup's Juncker cold on EU bank fund

* Greek official says Athens will guarantee deposits, Irish plans criticised

* France announces meeting of European G8 leaders

* Higher Europe-wide deposit guarantees mooted

By Francois Murphy and Marc Jones

PARIS/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The European Central Bank's chief and the chairman of euro zone finance ministers sided with Germany on Thursday in rejecting any need for a European rescue fund for banks suffering from the global financial crisis.

France confirmed that President Nicolas Sarkozy would host a summit on the global financial crisis with leaders of Germany, Britain and Italy, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and Eurogroup Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker in Paris on Saturday.

The announcement put an end to uncertainty about a meeting Paris has pushed for, due to disagreements among the main European Union governments on the right response to the deepening credit crunch.

An unnamed senior Greek finance ministry official said the country would guarantee all deposits at its banks. Such a move would ignore criticism of a similar move by fellow euro zone member Ireland, which has attracted criticism from Britain and Spain as well as misgivings among Brussels' competition authorities.

Governments in Germany, Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg have ridden to the rescue of banks in the past week, using state funds to take full or partial control to restore confidence in ailing lenders such as Fortis (FOR.BR) (FOR.AS) and Bradford & Bingley BB.L.

European officials welcomed the U.S. Senate's approval of a $700 billion plan to take so-called toxic assets off banks' balance sheets, but they insisted Europe did not need a similar programme or was not ready for it institutionally.

"We do not have a federal budget, so the idea that we could do the same as what is done on the other side of the Atlantic doesn't fit with the political structure of Europe," the ECB's Trichet told a news conference.

The bank left its interest rates unchanged on Thursday although it discussed a cut amid slowing growth and easing inflation risks.

Eurogroup Chairman Juncker said: "I don't see the need for us to set up a similar programme in Europe." Euro zone and European Union finance ministers meet on Monday and Tuesday respectively in Luxembourg.

Several European government sources said France had floated the idea of a 300 billion euro ($418.4 billion) EU bank rescue fund ahead of Saturday's meeting, although Paris denied the existence of such a proposal.

Sarkozy publicly said no EU-wide bailout was in the works and denied a 300 billion euro fund was under consideration.