It is possible to change this behaviour -- but only for one Gnome session: open gnome-keyboard-properties, Reset to Defaults, Add the desired additional keyboard layout again. It is then possible to switch between the different keyboard layouts using gnome-keyboard-applet. However, the behaviour will be buggy again in the next Gnome session.
-- France dvorak (dvorak-fr) layout not working with gnome https://launchpad.net/bugs/28161 -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs
