I'm still a bit proud to say I took part in the writing of the Shadows of Europe (SoE) sourcebook. This book started as an amateur project, the EuroSourceBook (EuroSB), on Dumpshock Forums in 1999 or 2000, to describe Europe in Shadowrun universe the way Shadows of North America did, updating all the old sourcebooks (London Sourcebook, Tir na nOg, Deutschland in der Schatten et the other german releases) but also countries like Italy or Spain which were never covered save a few short mentions. EuroSB was trying to find native writer for each country. Peter Taylor, a Britsh-Portuguese, was acting as the project head. There were german, brits, spaniards, french, polish, one italian...

In late 2000, my first website Shade was less than a year old. I started writing a file on Stockholm in 2060. My main issue with that kind of project was my lack of knowledge on the places I wanted to write about. I also wanted, when finding good stuff on others websites, to be as compatible as possible with them. Doing some research, I found several persons were working on Stockholm and the Scandinavian countries at large, as part of the EuroSB project. As I joined the project, I let people who knew the area describe it, with the opportunity to give some ideas regarding Shadowrun era developments. And I was also starting with the French a review of our own country.

The EuroSB team submited to Shadowrun publishing company, FanPro, a proposal to write an official sourcebook. They acceptd and the EuroSB became Shadows of Europe. From that point, we could no longer discuss the content on a public forum. A few authors already working with FanPro joined us, in particular to write the chapter on Ireland/Tir na nOg, for which we didn't have a local and which have a particular place in Shadowrun universe. We also got access to some excerpts of coming books before their actual release, when it touches upon topics we were to cover. So, before Threats 2 got out, we learnt about the Templar Knights returning in the Sixth World in a quite different way from what we had in mind.
We planned to have the templars has the sole French Catholic Church security force, playing on the doubt that old templar conspiracy could have survived and manipulate the Church. The core of French background, as finally described in Shadows of Europe was the French chapter of the Black Lodge (an organization described in Threats) having infiltrated the French clergy and helping the French aristocracy to take over key positions in the country. Concerning the Church security force, instead of templars, I proposed we create an Order of Saint Joan of Arc (as a saint, she can have an order named after her, and it would make sense for a French security force). I even had a nickname for this force members, as the "Archers". But the idea didn't take and got dropped.

A similar thing happened prior to that, before FanPro accepted our proposal. So it's only when Rigger 3 hit the shelves we could learn the chapter on the main vehicles manufacturing corporations. Airbus, Aérospatale and Saab were showing up, and GIAT Industries (now Nexter) was a Saeder-Krupp subsidiary.
Shortly before, I tasked myself with checking every references to corporations in the EuroSB. We had a list of every european corporations, with their possible ties to megacorporations. More than contradiction from an obscure reference from an ancient sourcebook, the main issue was to avoid having in every country corporations showing up as a world leader in some sector, and never to be seen elsewhere. Actually, size constraint in Shadows of Europe forced us to drop a lot of things and only focus on the most typical elements in each country. There also was some sort of jingoism, as nobody (even I) wanted its local champion to be just a subsidiary of a foreign megacorporation. The part in Shadows of Europe on the largest corporations at least doesn't give a too strong impression that they're limited to a single country of operation, even if that's not completely true. Another issue was how Saeder-Krupp was supposed to dominate Europe. Nobody wanted to do this straight. This would have resulted in every country being way too similar. Instead, we went for something more rampant, with megacorporations like AG Chemie Europe, Esprit Industries, Regulus Joint Industris or Renault-Fiat, who are obviously under Saeder-Krupp influence through shareholding, administrator seat on the board or industrial partnership.
The main effect of being the "corporate referee" was I did a lot of research on corporations in Shadowrun and real life, to the point I can claim to be some sort of reference. However, it ought to be said the european megacorporations description in SoE was writen with Peter Taylor. There have been about 20 versions, with some input from him and, more important, polishing the text in a way my English level would not allow me to.

France was already described in a sourcebook of the same name, France, only published in French by Jeux Descartes in 1997. I saw a lot of critics from French people about this book, and did some myself. However, I think some went to far in this. Among other thing, we got to remember sourcebook authors did not have resources like Wikipedia to do their research back then.
- Most people focus on the nobility return to power, an idea they consider stupid and way too unlikely. British authors Carl Sargent and Marc Gascoigne made the first reference to "French ruling aristocrats" in London Sourcebook. But more on that later.
- The book refers in several places to royalty, with a "royal army" for instance, but there is no king. I think this is badly tied up remnants of an earlier version where France would have been a monarchy, but I never could get this confirmed.
- Only the best in the world get a mention. And so France has the best research laboratories, the best computer security (that resisted the 2029 Crash), the best special forces, the best mages, the largest dragon in the world, and so on. That's something you actually find in a lot of locations sources, who wants to make the place significant to the rest of the world.
- A lack of research in some places, the most remarkable to me being Toulouse not appearing among Airbus major facilities.
- Monsieur de Fontainebleau, the big bad guy, Horrors agent (to keep it simple, evil forces) with ridiculous amount of power and influence. It wouldn't have been a problem if, first, he did play a role in later (US) books and, second, he didn't arrive as the Horrors arc was coming to an end, while a lof of people were complaining it was way too far from their type of games.

As long as the EuroSB was an amateur project, the French authors were giving themselves the right to widely ignore this book. There never was an English translation of France. FASA, then Shadowrun publisher, only validated a note summing up the main plot points. When we went official with FanPro, this situation, the German precedent, and some well-thought arguments, still allowed us to ignore what we wanted. We only had to respect the summary and mentions featuring in US sourcebooks. Which did include nobility as mentionned in London Sourcebook. Also, books like Matrix and Target: Matrix made no mention of French alledged computer expertise, and the first actually stated Saeder-Krupp was running the French gris. These more recent and official US sourcebooks should take precedence. But I nonetheless advocated at least a limited compatibility between France and EuroSB/Shadows of Europe, so that the gamemaster who used the former, in spite of all the flaws we thought it had, still could use the later.

For some parts, it's a "silent compatibility". Some elements are not there, but they could be. Like Monsieur de Fontainebleau for instance. In some other case, there is a formal contradiction, like the political regime nature (an institutional oligarchy in France, a de-jure republic and a de-faco oligarchy in Shadows of Europe). All in all, a lot of things were modified and not removed. The Britanny Mist is still there, but it appears randomly instead of covering the whole region permanently. There no longer is the largest dragon of the world sleeping in the middle of a volcanic caldera in Auvergne, but an unknown mass detected under the puy de la Taupe (Mole's Well, we did choose that one because of the Earthdawn-era dragon called Moleskin, that may be related to Christianity).

I do believe the EuroSB project et Shadows of Europe had a great influence on Shadowrun. Most authors kept on writing for Shadowrun for some time (about me, I got three proposals turned down for Loose Alliances and SOTA:2064 ; when I finally started working on Shadows of Asia, again on corporations, a sudden lack of time because of my real job forced me to drop unexpectedly). The german authors more or less took control of the German line. Peter Taylor, the project leader, went on to became Shadowrun Line Developper. This renewal also paved the way to a broader description of Shadowrun world, starting with Shadows of Asia, with plots involving more than Japanese, Americans and Aztlaners. Though we can't ignore Shadows of North America, SoE established a new standard regarding research within the Shadowrun line and documentation at large. Some elements came from nearly ten years old sourcebooks (like Johnny Spinrad, from Shadowtech, or Esprit Industries, from Fields of Fire). Actually, that was not a really impressive feat. Jeux Descartes really took a lot of time to translate Shadowrun books. So these elements were much more recent to us, and some of them were featuring in France. Research was also easier as the writing spanned over a much much longer period of time than sourcebook usually do. SoE was also the biggest sourcebook ever, until Shadows of Asia came out.

When Blackbook Editions became the new French publisher for Shadowrun, starting with the Fourth Edition, they published Shadows of Europe under the title L'Europe des Ombres (though it is a 3rd Edition sourcebook). A lot of people from the Shadowrun community I know were involved in the translation work. I did translate the part I wrote in the first place. At least, I know the authors' intent. That was not as simple as it may seem however, thanks to higly idiomatic expressions.

The Ombres Portées group, which is the umbrella for Shadowrun French authors, wrote additional chapters for several 4th Edition sourcebooks translation, as well as a French-German sourcebook, SOX. As far as I know, save for some help I gave to them occasionally, the only member of the French EuroSB/SoE team remaining is Namergon. My personal impression reading those (trying to be as objective as possible) is a will to "kill" a lot of elements from Shadows of Europe, themselves inherited from older sourcebooks, like nobility power (put to an end by a political scandal in SOX) or Marseilles special status (minimized or even ignored in Capitale des Ombres, the French translation of Runner Havens). As usual, I'm a bit disappointed when plot elements I have been working on for years to fully integrate them in sourcebooks and games. The same thing happened when French megacorporation Esprit Industries became an Aztechnology subsidiary because one US author listed it that way.