Sartre adopted Arlette Elkaïm and made her his heir, so Simone de Beauvoir had no legal say over his work and adopted a daughter of her own

In 1956 Arlette Elkaïm, a student from Algeria, wrote to Jean-Paul Sartre; they had a brief affair, and he helped her stay in Paris when her father ordered her home for an arranged marriage. He formally adopted her in 1965 (some sources say 1964). The adoption made her his heir. Simone de Beauvoir, his companion since 1929, was not. In March 1980 Le Nouvel Observateur published interviews between the blind Sartre and his secretary, Benny Lévy, in which Sartre moved away from earlier positions. Beauvoir and the Les Temps Modernes circle accused Lévy of manipulating a weakened man; Sartre confirmed the interviews were authentic. He died on 15 April 1980, and Elkaïm became his universal legatee. That year Beauvoir legally adopted Sylvie Le Bon to give her own unpublished writing a legal heir. In Adieux, published in December 1981, Beauvoir wrote bitterly about the interviews and broke with Lévy. Elkaïm led the posthumous editions, starting with the Critique of Dialectical Reason in 1985. Le Bon later published Beauvoir's letters unedited, which Elkaïm had not done with Sartre's. Lévy turned to Orthodox Judaism and died in Jerusalem in 2003. Elkaïm died on 16 September 2016. On 3 May 2017 Le Canard enchaîné reported a closed-door battle over Sartre's inheritance; its parties are not confirmed^†.