Accent and form_submit

Hi

First at all, I must say that I am a newbie with Code Igniter, so may be the answer is very simple for you. If I have miss a page in this forum or the documentation, please let me know, I will read it with pleasure... my current search were unsucessful.

I try to write my first code in CI and have some problem with french accent.

echo form_label('Email é : ', 'emailCreateInput');   ----> display correctly the string

echo form_submit('submit', htmlentities("Créer son compte"));   ---> the button value is empty (<input type="submit" name="submit" value=""  />)

echo form_submit('submit', htmlentities("Cr&eacute;er son compte"));   ---> the button value is "Cr&amp;eacute;er" instead of "Cr&eacute;er"   (<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Cr&amp;eacute;er son compte"  />)

I probably miss something, but do not know what.
Can you help me ?
Thanks