vswprintf keeps prefixing a Byte Order Mark character - c

Question

I am still a rookie with C, and even newer to wide chars in C.
The below code should show
4 points to Smurfs
but it shows
4 points to Smurfs
In gdb I see this:
(gdb) p buffer
$1 = L" 4 points to Smurfs",
But when I copy paste from the console, the spaces are magically gone:
(gdb) p buffer
$1 = L"4 points to Smurfs",
Also, buffer[0] contains this according to gdb:
65279 L' '
Apparently the character in question &#65279 is the Unicode Character 'ZERO WIDTH NO-BREAK SPACE' (U+FEFF). I retyped the code making sure I did not enter this. I don't know where this comes from. I also opened the code in notepad per https://stackoverflow.com/a/9691839/7602 and there is no extra chars there.
I wouldn't care if ncurses would stop showing this as a space.
Code (heavily cut down):
#include <time.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <wchar.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <locale.h>
#define NCURSES_WIDECHAR 1
#include <ncursesw/ncurses.h>
#include "types.h"
#include "defines.h"
#include "externs.h"
WINDOW * term;
/*row column color n arguments */
void rccn(int row, int col, const wchar_t *fmt, ...)
{
wchar_t buffer[80];
int size;
va_list args;
va_start(args, fmt);
size = vswprintf(buffer, 80, fmt, args);
va_end( args );
if(size >= 80){
mvaddwstr(row, col, L"Possible hacker detected!");
}else{
mvaddwstr(row, col, buffer);
}
}
int main(void)
{
int ch;
setlocale(LC_ALL,"");
term = initscr();
rccn(1,1,L"%i points to %ls",4,L"Smurfs");
ch = getch();
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
The problem goes 'away' with
rccn(1,1,L"%i points to %ls",4,L"Smurfs"+1);
As if the wide encoding of the constant adds that char in front..

Answer 1

Found it..
I had followed a tutorial where it was advised to add this compiler flag:
-fwide-exec-charset=utf-32
My code was not running on Cygwin at all, and I read that Windows is utf-16 centered, so I removed that compiler flag and it started working on Cygwin.
Then out of curiosity I removed the compiler flag on Raspbian, and it is now working as expected there as well, no more byte order marks.