title: Open a text file with accents in python
body: <p>I try to open a text file in French with Python 2.7. I used the command </p>
  
  <pre><code>f=open('textfr','r')
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>but when I use</p>
  
  <pre><code>f.read()
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I lose accented characters: I get <code>u"J'\xc3\xa9tais \xc3\xa0</code> Paris instead of <code>J'étais à</code> Paris, etc..</p>
  
  <p>when in linux terminal, I do </p>
  
  <pre><code>file -i textfr 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I get </p>
  
  <pre><code>charset=utf-8
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>so I do not understand...</p>