diff --git a/resources/recipes/le_monde.recipe b/resources/recipes/le_monde.recipe
index 18be6ca711..c14b8eeeff 100644
--- a/resources/recipes/le_monde.recipe
+++ b/resources/recipes/le_monde.recipe
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ from calibre.web.feeds.recipes import BasicNewsRecipe
 class LeMonde(BasicNewsRecipe):
     title                  = 'Le Monde'
     __author__             = 'veezh'
-    description            = 'Actualités'
+    description            = u'Actualit\xe9s'
     oldest_article         = 1
     max_articles_per_feed  = 100
     no_stylesheets         = True
diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py
index 35d565606d..c015868992 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py
@@ -657,7 +657,10 @@ class Metadata(object):
                 attrib[key] = prefixname(value, nsrmap)
             if namespace(self.term) == DC11_NS:
                 elem = element(parent, self.term, attrib=attrib)
-                elem.text = self.value
+                try:
+                    elem.text = self.value
+                except:
+                    elem.text = repr(self.value)
             else:
                 elem = element(parent, OPF('meta'), attrib=attrib)
                 elem.attrib['name'] = prefixname(self.term, nsrmap)