problem with french keyboard

I've a French keyboard and I used
    META.."oe"
for the scratchpad (the key left of number 1).
It worked well when I launched X with gdm.

Now I don't use gdm anymore and launch ion with startx. And the key only
works after a restart of ion (with F12).
The other keys seem to work.

Any idea of what gdm does to make that key available and why it works
after a restart ?
[I'm on Debian Lenny]