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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, TASS reported.

"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.