Notes about typing français in emacs with English keyboard.
Change input method with C-x RET C-\ or M-x set-input-method. There are
three french input methods for English keyboard: french-prefix,
french-postfix, and french-alt-postfix. french-prefix input method will
let the accent to be typed before alphabets, e.g: to type ç, type ,c. In
french-postfix input method, type c,. Help of french-prefix input method,
which shown with C-h I or M-x describe-input-method, had a nice table:
Input method: french-prefix (mode line indicator:FR>)
French (Français) input method with prefix modifiers
effect | prefix | examples
------------+--------+----------
acute | ' | 'e -> é
grave | ` | `a -> à
circumflex | ^ | ^a -> â
diaeresis | " | "i -> ï
cedilla | ~ or , | ~c -> ç ,c -> ç
symbol | ~ | ~> -> » ~< -> «
Characters with accents were able to type with these two modes, though the
character œ was not. Found an entry in emacs-devel thread posted in 2008 which
mentioning french ç and œ. To type in œ, use latin-postfix or
latin-prefix input method, the key sequence to type œ is o/2 and /o2,
respectively. latin-prefix and latin-postfix input methods contains those
characters typed in with french input methods:
Input method: latin-postfix (mode line indicator:L<)
Latin character input method with postfix modifiers.
This is the union of various input methods originally made for input
of characters from a single Latin-N charset.
| postfix | examples
------------+---------+----------
acute | ' | a' -> á
grave | ` | a` -> à
circumflex | ^ | a^ -> â
diaeresis | " | a" -> ä
tilde | ~ | a~ -> ã
cedilla | , | c, -> ç
ogonek | , | a, -> ą
breve | ~ | a~ -> ă
caron | ~ | c~ -> č
dbl. acute | : | o: -> ő
ring | . | u. -> ů
dot | . | z. -> ż
stroke | / | d/ -> đ
nordic | / | d/ -> ð t/ -> þ a/ -> å e/ -> æ o/ -> ø
others | / | s/ -> ß ?/ -> ¿ !/ -> ¡ // -> °
| various | << -> « >> -> » o_ -> º a_ -> ª
Doubling the postfix separates the letter and postfix: e.g. a'' -> a'