Hollande said he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel would travel to Kiev today and then to Moscow the following day, with a proposal "based on the territorial integrity of Ukraine."
In a sign of the importance of the initiative and urgency of the situation, this will be Merkel's first trip to Moscow since Ukraine's conflict broke out a year ago.
"It will not be said that France and Germany together have not tried everything, undertaken everything to preserve the peace," Hollande said.
"Given the escalation of violence in the past days, the chancellor and President Hollande are intensifying their months-long efforts for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in eastern Ukraine," Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said in a statement.