Hi! Same results here (Perl 5.8.8 on Slackware linux 12.0).

perl -w 651153.pl
Eval buggy code
ERR = Unrecognized character \xE9 at (eval 1) line 1.
DONE
Eval good code
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at 651153.pl
+ line 15.
string is :
DONE
[download]

Since the file was encoded in ISO-8859, I converted it to utf-8, but with similar results. Then I added "use utf8;" as first line - and the script worked:

Eval buggy code
DONE
Eval good code
string is : new eval done
DONE
[download]

So, if anyone wants to use non-ascii characters for variable names, you should save the script as utf8 text file and include "use utf8;" Have a nice day!