Try the Canadian Multilingual French layout on a standard QWERTY keyboard.
à is \
è is '
é is /
ç is ]
accent grave is right-alt+[+letter
and
"specials" are right-alt+num (±@£¢¤¬{}[]) but for any glyph used in programming, I usually switch back to US keyboard using alt+caps-lock. Ça fonctionne très bien pour moi!