While the file on Corporate America was intended to provide an equivalent of the corporate chapter featured in Shadows of Europe and Shadows of Asia, this file on Esprit Industries was an attempt at a Corporate Download-type of chapter, an in-depth description of the corporation with as much details as possible.

Esprit Industries was my pet corp during the writing of SoE and for some time thereafter. It was the first French corporation to be mentionned in Shadowrun, in Fields of Fire about military armors sales. The arm industry is a easy enough, classic villain, already embodied in Shadowrun by Ares Macrotechnology. However, France has a historical background, in real life, of scandals related to arm sales and political corruption (try make a search on Taiwan frigates or Pakistan submarines contracts) that could be used as an inspiration for a French megacorporation on par with the competition, plot-wise.

I left the file mostly untouched since I wrote it (except for the occasional typo or grammar fix). So, it's set in 2063, around the same time than Shadows of Europe. At some point, I realized the file who as online actually only has the very first paragraph translated. I translated the whole thing again, and it's only when I nearly had finished that I found back a file with the first translation. I have no idea if that first-hand version ever was online (I'm not sure, the file is as old as 2003, it's possibly I considered submitting for Loose Alliances at the time), but if it was, you may notice the chosen wording may differ. I thought about adapting it to the 2070ies, but never got the opportunity to do so. As usual, now looking back, I find some of my own choice have been poorly done. I absolutely wanted Esprit to have a firearm subsidiary with a bit of brand recognition, and picked Beretta, without really paying attenton to the specific background of the Beretta family company in real life. On the other hand, I also strictly respected older references in Shadowrun to GIAT as a Saeder-Krupp subsidiary (in Rigger 3) and FN Herstal as a Monobe subsidiary (in Corpoate Shadowfiles). The result probably is way too much complicated to explain. However, it did also provided a new, different and more subtle way to explain Saeder-Krupp influence over Europe. But I should have come up with something simplier.

In the first, seconde and third editions of Shadowrun rulebook, the Uzi-3 submachine gun description included this sentence : "The Fabrique Nationale model, officially manufactured for the French government, is a common street weapon." The wording left me baffling for a long time. Usually, an automatic weapon would be manufacturer for the police, law enforcement agencies, or armed forces. Not the "governement". The ministers and their staff usually do not need to be armed, especially not with automatic weapons.
During SoE writing, the issue bothered me a bit. Afterall, that was one of the very rare mention of France in the existing Shadowrun books at that time.
In 2000, FN Herstal of Belgium was a subsidiary of GIAT Industries. FN Herstal is known to produce the FN Minimi machine gun, the FN P90 SMG and the Five-Seven pistol (Counter-Strike players should know). Browning and Winchester in the US also belongs to FN Herstal. Also, in Shadowrun, the southern, French-speaking part of Belgium, Wallonia, where FN Herstal is headquartered, was to become a French region. So FNH seemed like a good candidate to merge with Esprit Industries. Moreover, weapons like Browning Max-Power and Uzi-3 having existed for a long time in Shadowrun, it could have helped "anchoring" the corporation into the world. But according to Corporate Shadowfiles, FNH was a subisdiary of Japanese corporation Monobe International.
Gathering all these elements, I came up with a story about Uzi-3, a sort of 21st century French equivalent of Soviet A-47 during the Cold War. During the Eurowars and the occupation of Greece by Turkish forces (as described in SOTA:2064), the French governement proper could have officially requested a company to mass produce automatic weapons. Such a weapon, built in high numbers and exported through clandestine channels, had what it takes to become two decades later the most widely used in drive-by shooting in North America.

The Horizon orbital station got that name before the Horizon corporation appeared first in SOTA:2064, then System Failure and the Fourth Edition. I guess it's now rather confusing.

As an anecdote, the origin of the ERIS black armors can be traced back to a campaign I played with WEG Star Wars RPG, where the Galactic Empire latest secret project was a new black stormtrooper armor. The ERIS are not intended to be yet another "best" special forces. The rating of special forces is not only how deadly they are with a gun or a knife. Having four people entering in a room through the same door, in less than a five seconds, efficiently and without bumping into each other, require lot of training. So, doing the same with military-grade armors as large as most door frames, or parachuting or abseiling would require lof of training as well. So I think most special forces in Shadowrun would actually not bother and opt for lightier armor instead, FFBA stacking and the likes.
About Ares Firewatch team using Esprit armors, there's a sort of source. In Corporate Download, the Game Information page that featured the paragraph on Firewatch also featured an illustration based on the Esprit Industries armo in Fields of Fire. Naturally, a lot of people think the illustration is showing Firewatch team members.

As a side note, "Eris" is the name of the Greek Goddess of Discordia. In Shadowrun, Ares Macrotechnology, which would be Esprit biggest rival, is already widely using greek mythological names. In real life, it somewhat the opposite, as French armed forces really are using such names a lot, more than their US counterparts.

The chapter ended by Game Information for the GM, following the Corporate Download format, which gave among other things stats for ERIS team (for 3rd edition at the time) and Esprit corporate ratings that were featured at some point on Shadowrun website.