Strange Unicode problem

At runtime I set a string with accented letters represented by unicode digits

Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 G\u00e9n\u00e9rale

to MyTextMeshPro.text

The rendered result doesn't show accented letters, but the Unicode digits:
'Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 G\u00e9n\u00e9rale'

But if I select in editor the TextMeshPro component, and modify the string in anyways such as adding a character, then the rendered result correctly shows the accented letters.

I'm assuming this triggers a rebuild and thus corrects the problem? But I manually call
MyTextMeshPro.Rebuild()
MyTextMeshPro.SetDirty()

but none works

 

This is the text after it was set at runtime to this TextMeshPro text via
assignment to MyTextMeshPro.text. Notice on the left side's scene view, the unicode shows up.



As soon as I manually add a space character to the text in the editor, then the accented character shows up in the scene view.

Adding/changing text in any other way in the Unity editor also corrects the accented character.
But if done programatically, it doesn't do any correction