kicker applet 'arythmetic evaluator' has problem with national decimal symbol

This was working right under kde 3.5.1. In kde 3.5.2 dapper ii kicker-applets 3.5.2-0ubuntu1

I have a problem when using the applet that does arithmetic evaluation.

I am in french language :
$ locale
LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=fr_FR:fr:en_GB:en
LC_CTYPE="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="fr_FR.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

but entering number with french decimal point (.) triggers a syntax error in the applet. It works only when using the comma (,).

but the results are given with the right decimal points (.)

example :
7*45.7 ENTER ==> syntax error
7*45,7 ENTER ==> 319.9 (notice the . which is right)
319.9*2 ENTER ==> syntax error

I tried after verifying that KDE local are rightly set to french. But defaults for this local is ',' as decimal point.
Then I changed decimal point to '.' and restarted KDE.
Result is the same syntax error when using arythmetic expression using '.' as decimal symbol.