Precomposed accented characters such as "é" should first be decomposed, and only then styled.
My interpretation of UTR #25, Section 6.5 Accented Characters, and especially the sentence below, is that we should first decompose any precomposed character, and only then apply the styles.
to achieve consistent results, a mathematical display system should transiently decompose any precomposed upright letters when used in mathematical expressions, and should use a single algorithm to place embellishments.