National strike. Town of Saint-Ouen, France, 1936

David Seymour photographed this protest in Paris, prior to the founding of the agency, and at time when he, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa were living there. The workers’ protests pictured here led to the formation of the Popular Front government in France, an alliance of socialists, communists and liberals formed to fight the rising tide of fascism in the inter-war period. This movement ultimately led these three photographers to the front of the Spanish Civil War, the first true conflict in Magnum’s historic archive