This behavior is due to the underlying Lisp implementation (namely GCL) incorrectly handling UTF-8 characters. (You are working with Maxima as compiled by GCL, right? If I am not mistaken, that is the default for Debian.)
You can work around this behavior by compiling Maxima with a UTF-8-aware Lisp implementation such as SBCL or Clisp. There are probably others as well. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org