Can not get french characters working (edgy, urgent)

[tchize]

Hello, am facing this problem with my kubuntu:

Typing some special characters that need you to press several keys in a
row (eg ^e for ê) simply does not work, what ever combinaison of keybord
layout / variant i choose.

I can have the ê ö or ì characters inside thunderbird and firefox, but
it fails in every kde apps and in openoffice. Imagine how much it's
impossible to type a document when you can't type the correct letters...

I have a belgian keyboard layout.
I tried the generic 104,105, 101 key keyboard and the dell multimedia
keyboard, in all variants. Depending on the variant, i either have no ^
character or it does not combine with the following vowel and outputs
^e  šo or `i

I need it to be solved quickly, anyone can help?