#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-


from xml.dom import minidom



test_xml=u'<test>ùùééé</test>'

parsed = minidom.parseString(test_xml.encode('utf-8'))


print parsed.toxml()

with open('/tmp/test_xml.tmp','wb') as f:
    parsed.writexml(f,encoding='utf-8')
    #f.write(parsed.toxml('utf-8'))