She served between 1959 and 1995 as president of the La Dépêche du Midi newspaper group, while pursuing a parallel career as a regional politician.
[3] Évelyne Isaac and her twin brother[2] were born into a Jewish family in Batna, a substantial inland city in northeastern Algeria.
[4] She pursued her studies at the girl's lycée at Constantine, and then at the University of Algiers from which she successfully graduated (with so-called "Khâgne" and "Hypokhâgne" pre-university degree qualifications).
[6] On 30 December 1940 Évelyne Isaac married Jean Baylet (1904-1959), a Radical Party politician and director of the Dépêche de Toulouse (regional newspaper).
[7] In 1943 Joseph Lécussan, a senior Vichy official, launched an enquiry in the region on behalf of the "Commissariat général" into the "Jewish question".
[4] Starting in 1944, Jean and Évelyne Baylet spent two years assembling evidence of their "Résistance credentials" and submitting applications to have the newspaper business returned to the family.
With the need for secrecy gone, there was abundance evidence available from numerous well placed witnesses of the extent of the practical help Jean Baylet had given to those opposing the German occupation.
Évelyne Baylet had already spent a considerable amount of time in Paris, pleading with officials at all the government ministries that might be persuaded to show support, but this had failed to achieve a result.
Later, in 1957, Bourgès-Maunoury would serve (briefly) as Prime Minister of France, but in 1947 he was merely an ambitious young opposition politician and, importantly, a witness of what happened next.
[1] Jean Baylet died relatively young, in a motor accident: he collided at high speed with a tree after a motor cyclist cut across his path, on 29 May 1959,[9] The next day his widow appeared at the printing plant and told the assembled employees "I am going to take over the direction of this newspaper" ("Je vais assumer la direction de ce journal").
[10] In 2012, now aged 99, Évelyne-Jean Baylet retired from her most enduring position, being her directorship of the La Dépêche du Midi newspaper group.