ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

... and with my AZERTY keyboard, the game is simply unplayable

I remember having this issue when implementing the SDL port for my MAngband variant. When implementing keysets, I had to use unicode mappings instead of key mappings to get rid of the keyboard dependence (and by default it was mapped to a QWERTY keyboard).
Any chance that the same thing happens in T4?

Is it a laptop keyboard? Because if you have 9 directional arrows, then the rest should be the same... Or what am I missing?

On a laptop keyboard it is obviously very, very hard to play (I've been playing on one)...

Nope, normal AZERTY keyboard. All game keys are mapped to QWERTY by default. Basically I have to remap some keys (for ex. ctrl-q remapped to ctrl-a to display quest info) to play properly.

I'm french too (as you know ;> ) and the only keys I have to rebind are the hotkeys

I suppose you compiled the version you use. I downloaded mine from the location given in the announcement, and it's clearly based on QWERTY keyboard. Strangely, all commands work with the default keymapping except quest menu (ctrl-q) which you access with ctrl-a (so "w" works, but if you go to the "key bindings" menu and press "w", it will display "z" and map the key to "w" with the AZERTY keyboard).

Compilation has no bearing on it.

The OS sends keypresses to SDL which the game then receives. If you press "q" and the game receives "a" it means either the OS or SDL does one too much convertion :/

Anyway keybinder is there to handle that and since it's permenently saved (and even shared between modules) you wont have to redo it ever