PARIS, February 7. /TASS/. Valerie Pecresse, a French presidential candidate nominated by the Republicans party, switched to Russian while appearing on France 5 television channel on Sunday, to call for building peace in Europe.

"I want to tell the proud Russian people that we should together build peace in Europe," she said, adding that hostilities in Ukraine "would be a big mistake."

When a child, Pecresse studied Russian and stayed at Artek, a summer camp for children in Crimea.

On TV, she also called for a dialogue.

"The dialogue resumed. It’s good," the politician said, now in French. Europe should speak in a single voice with Russia, she added.

"I think France, together with the EU, should offer [Russian President] Vladimir Putin a new conference for European security" to achieve greater stability on the continent, Pecresse said.

French Government Spokesperson Gabriel Attal said earlier that French President Emmanuel Macron’s visits to Moscow on February 7 and Kiev on February 8 will continue the efforts by Paris to de-escalate the situation around Ukraine. Putin and Macron discussed the subject by phone three times over the past two weeks.

There has been a flurry of statements in the West and Kiev lately that Russia could invade Ukraine. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said they were unsubstantiated escalation and that Russia doesn’t threaten anyone. At the same time, he didn’t rule out provocations to corroborate these Western statements and warned that the use of force to resolve the crisis in southeastern Ukraine will have serious consequences.

France is scheduled to hold presidential elections on April 10 and may hold a runoff on April 24. Candidates may be nominated before the start of March, and about 40 politicians are now campaigning.