How do I replace accented Latin characters in Ruby?

class Foo
  validates_presence_of :name

  before_validate :set_canonical_name

  private

  def set_canonical_name
    self.canonical_name ||= canonicalize(self.name) if self.name
  end

  def canonicalize(x)
    x.downcase.  # something here
  end
end

x.downcase.gsub(/[àáâãäå]/,'a').gsub(/æ/,'ae').gsub(/ç/, 'c').gsub(/[èéêë]/,'e')....

>> "àáâãäå".chars.normalize(:kd).gsub(/[^x00-x7F]/n,'').downcase.to_s
=> "aaaaaa"

register_replacement([0x008A].pack('U'), 'S')