French President called on European countries to maintain dialogue with Russian President to avoid risking “a new world war”.

Speaking to radio station France Inter on Friday, in his final live media interview before Sunday’s election runoff against Marine Le Pen, Emmanuel Macron warned against choosing a military path against Russia to end the crisis in Ukraine.

“A military solution means that we decide to escalate the conflict, which would therefore start a new world war. France had sent a lot of military equipment to Ukraine. If we had not done so, Kyiv would probably have already fallen. Paris and Berlin had decided not to interfere directly in the war and instead send military equipment to Kyiv”, - he said.

Macron added that if he wins on Sunday, he would “not rule out at all” talking again with Vladimir Putin, though he would first speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Stopping dialogue with Putin, Macron explained, would mean leaving the negotiations to other powers, such as “the Turkish President [Recep Tayyip Erdoğan], the Chinese President [Xi Jinping] or others”.