yes it will work, but you may find it frustrating that several of the special characters keys do not produce the same symbol as are listed on the key itself.  if you are trying to create a us english machine then you may want to purchase a new keyboard with us english markings.  if you are just trying to reload a problematic machine and do not have the french edition of windows then you can change the default language once windows is installed, but the help files will all be in english with the english edition of windows...  on the other hand, if windows is working fine on this pc, and you just want it to behave as an english machine you can change the default language, but again, the help files will remain to be in french.
this should help:
http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/win2k/setup/changeUI.mspx
and
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/winxp/yourlanguage.mspx

Hi and thanks for the quick reply,

the reasons are:

1-yes i have a problematic machine

2-no i don't have a french edition cd

3-although i am bilingual i would prefer and all english edition

so just to be clear my key will work no problem?

yes, it will work.  the keyboard is the same other than the characters printed on the keys.   for instance you don't have a dollar sign on the french keyborad above the number 4 key, you have it the dollar sign key on your french keyboard two keys to the right of the 'p'.  and if you install us english windows xp on your system then when you press your key labled '$' you will get a ']' unless you change the default language as described in the links provided above.

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions.

Goodbye and have a nice day!