What is the proper way to switch from English to French

I need to be able to switch from english and french and back again, but I
keep getting half the page in English and half in French.  The dynamic
content comes up in French, but the static HTML is English.  I have to leave
the page, come back and refresh it to get it to work.  And on top of that
half the time the french characters don't display on the page property
(either get that nice little square box or funny characters).

Can anyone help me with multi-language in Tapestry and in HTML in general??
It is an important project and I would like to get it solved.  Thanks.

I have attached the relevant source file.  It is the Java source for the
border component used on everyone of our pages.