Please, store the French words into file 'french.txt'm the try this from the unix command line:

# Set LC_ALL to fr_FR.utf8 (or whatever is the proper locale)
$ export LC_ALL=fr_FR.utf8        

# ensure that french words are properly is displayed
$ cat french.tx                   

# you should see perl displaying proper French
$ cat french.txt | perl -Mencoding='utf8' -e 'print <STDIN>'
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If the French did not display, either the LC_ALL is not properly set, or the editor is not storing its words in utf8