Problem with utf-8 and parameters

[eluser]alainb[/eluser]
Hi I installed code igniter 1.6.2 from a backup on a local server

let say I named it dev1.myserver.com
the site is working fine with no problem
I have search form and if i search été it search and display été
the site is in utf-8 tha database is also in utf-8

So far so good

I decided to update codeigiter to 2.1.0
So i created another web site named dev2.myserver.com

Then I put the same view, controlers etc

After few hours the site is now running, it use the same database than dev1

I checked all the config and everything look fine

except that if i search for été the url look fine
http://dev2.myserver.com/seasons/index/c...ervice/été

but the result give
Recherche sur :
Saisons : % C3 % A9t % C3 % A9 (I added extras blanks because this site was converting it)

Does anyone have a clue where exactly I missed a configuration?

again all the controlers, vies etc are the same the config.php is also identical
except some change like changing parent::Controller(); to parent::__construct();
I used the same file so it should be identical...

[eluser]alainb[/eluser]
UPDATE

I deleted the whole site, reinstalled the codeigniter 2.1.0 and reinstalled the controlers, view etc same thing.

What weird is all the accents in the page show correctly, all text from database with accent are shown correctly its just what I enter in a form wo get translated to unicode when sumbitting a form and not retranslated from unicode to utf-8 when reading the url string