diff --git a/src/kauthhelpersupport.cpp b/src/kauthhelpersupport.cpp
--- a/src/kauthhelpersupport.cpp
+++ b/src/kauthhelpersupport.cpp
@@ -69,6 +69,9 @@
             setenv(home, pw->pw_dir, overwrite);
         }
     }
+    //LANG is not inherited from the user
+    //if not set to UTF-8 file operations with accents in the path will fail
+    qputenv("LANG", "C.UTF-8");
 }
 #endif