French (swiss) keyboard commands not recognized

[Rinias]

Hi, the problem I have here is that when I try to type this:

ê (or) ë (or just about anything else that takes two keytrokes), OO does not respond.

In order to type these things, I have to type ^ this key and then the e .
When I do this, NOTHING shows up. If I hit e again, an e pops up, but with no hat...

This doesn't happen in my Mandrake Linux OO version (1.1.1), but here I am running Slackware with OO 1.1.2 and it doesn't work... Funny thing is, everything works in the X11 environment, just not in OO. Abiword works... This internet post works...

What could it be??