Check to be certain those entities aren't being xml escaped. If you entered (pasted, typed, whatever...) all the data from your Word Processor document into a WYSIWYG editor such as Sigil's Book View, that's likely to happen. Entities need to be pasted/typed into Code View (speaking strictly about Sigil here)... because they're, well...
code.

Otherwise É becomes &Eacute;. Just like <p> becomes <p>. What, if anything, are you using to build/create the ePub from your word processor document?