Évelyne Baylet

Évelyne Baylet (born Évelyne Isaac: 14 June 1913 - 6 November 2014) was a French company director. 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.

In 1970 she became president of the departmental council for Tarn-et-Garonne, which is a department in the southwest of France. Membership of departmental councils had been based on universal male suffrage since 1848, and on universal adult suffrage since 1944, but it was only in 1970 that Évelyne Baylet became the first president of any departmental council in France who was also a woman.

Life Provenance and early years Évelyne Isaac and her twin brother Maurice Simon Isaac (1882-), her father, was a Corps des mines member. Her mother was a school teacher. Between 1937 and 1940 she taught French, Latin and Greek at a girls' school in Bône.

Marriage and war years On 30 December 1940 Évelyne Isaac married Jean Baylet (1904-1959), a Radical Party politician and director of the Dépêche de Toulouse (regional newspaper). They had met while Évelyne was accompanying her mother who was undergoing a cure at Ax-les-Thermes. The ceremony took place in Jean Baylet's home town, Valence-d'Agen. The marriage would produce three recorded children including the politician-journalist Jean-Michel Baylet. By 2014 there were also seven grandchildren and six great grandchildren. In 1943 Joseph Lécussan, a senior Vichy official, launched an enquiry in the region on behalf of the "Commissariat général" into the "Jewish question". Évelyne Baylet hastened to disappear, changing her name to Eliane Bories. The times were uncertain and lawless, however, and the Bayets were still prevented from returning to the newspaper offices. On 24 October 1947 Jean Baylet turned up at the newspaper's Toulouse offices accompanied by the rugby team from nearby Valence-d'Agen. By this time it was six months since a court had formally restored the newspaper to him, but the individuals occupying the offices had turned a deaf ear to the court. 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"). She had little obvious relevant experience, while legally 76% of the ownership of the business passed directly to her teenage children. But, as she later explained, she thought she was "best places to look after the interests of the newspaper", after which the position passed to the couple's son, Jean-Michel Baylet. There was nothing seamless about that succession, however. It involved a fierce contest that ended up in a court case. Jean-Michel Baylet's rival for the mayoral office in 1977 was Danièle Malet-Baylet, his elder sister. She sat as a member of the Radical Party, switching after 1973 to the newly relaunched Radical Party of the Left ("Mouvement des Radicaux de Gauche" / MRG). Ten years after taking over her husband's place on the Departmental council for Tarn-et-Garonne, in 1970 Évelyne-Jean Baylet took over as council president, the first woman to take on such a position anywhere in France. She died just over two years later. Officer of the National Order of Merite Commander of the Order of Academic Palms Chevalier of the Order of Agricultural Merit