Parsing of numeric values

Hello - 
I am a bit confused on the built-in capability of FM to parse a localized
numeric expression, and before I write a custom routine for this, maybe
there is wisdom I lack.

I am trying to process a mathematical expression on the contents of a map of
string data:

---------------
| a |  1,111    |
| b |  2,222    |
---------------

so a simple expression like
     ${a?number + b?number}  

would work if the numbers were not localized, right?  That I have had
success with.

The original syntax 
   #{a} + #{b}

is deprecated according to this page in the docs
    
http://freemarker.sourceforge.net/docs/ref_depr_numerical_interpolation.html 

although trying this I get the error message:

    a is not a number, it is freemarker.template.SimpleScalar

Using the number built-in  ?c  and the string built-in ?string.computer 
fail with similar messages, such as "Expected hash" etc.   It seems I do not
understand what data type I am dealing with.   

I would like to have have the 2 numbers added together and output with the
default localized syntax.  Am I looking past something?    Thanks for ideas
-
-- 
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