system and application folders above the web root

Hi

To make a long story short. My folders structure is as follows :

project
application
system
public
index.php

My .htaccess :

Code:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} /public/([^\s?]*) [NC]
RewriteRule ^ %1 [L,NE,R=302]
RewriteRule ^((?!public/).*)$ public/$1 [L,NC]

but locally, after url taped :

localhost/project

routers method _set_request() receives as argument an array :

segments ( [0] => project )

and makes directly "project" controller's name.

What am I missing ? Is it a configuration issue or something else ?

Thx in advance for any response.