Palindrome unicode https://repl.it/@ffuentes/SnappyLoyalPi-1

main.py

import unittest
import palindrome

class TestNormalize(unittest.TestCase):
    def test_normalize_russian(self):
        str = "Кит на мо́ре — рома́нтик"
        rstr = "Кит на море — романтик"
        self.assertEqual(rstr, palindrome.normalize(str))

    def test_normalize_spanish(self):
        str = "Allí ves Sevilla."
        rstr = "Alli ves Sevilla."
        self.assertEqual(rstr, palindrome.normalize(str))

class TestPalindrome(unittest.TestCase):

    def test_english_palindrome(self):
        str = "\"Stop!\" nine myriad murmur. \"Put up rum, rum, dairymen, in pots.\""
        self.assertTrue(palindrome.palindrome(str))

    def test_spanish_palindrome(self):
        str = "Allí ves Sevilla."
        self.assertTrue(palindrome.palindrome(str))

    def test_spanish_n(self):
        str = "Aña."
        self.assertTrue(palindrome.palindrome(str))

    def test_russian_palindrome(self):
        str = "Кит на мо́ре — рома́нтик"
        self.assertTrue(palindrome.palindrome(str))

    def test_another_russian(self):
        str = "Мини́стр отли́чно ко́нчил торт си́ним"
        self.assertTrue(palindrome.palindrome(str))

unittest.main()

palindrome.py

import unicodedata
import re

def reverse_string(str):
    # reverses the phrase
    return ''.join(reversed(str))

def clean(str):
# helps ignoring punctuation as we check palindrom phrases 
    #translator=str.maketrans('','',string.punctuation)
    #return str.translate(translator)
    return re.sub(r'[^\w\s]','', str, 0, re.UNICODE)

def normalize(str):
    """ removes accents (if present) from a string """
    nfkd_form = unicodedata.normalize('NFKD', str)
    text = u"".join([c for c in nfkd_form if not unicodedata.combining(c)])
    return text

def palindrome(str):
    """ Returns true if the string is a palindrome """  
    reverso = reverse_string(clean(str.strip())).replace(" ", "").lower()
    reverso = normalize(reverso)
    original = clean(str.strip()).replace(" ", "").lower()
    original = normalize(original)
    return original == reverso

String.translate had a little issue with a long dash (—) that I casually found in a Russian palindrome. It worked!