Coordinates: 50°01′05″N 4°03′14″E / 50.0181°N 4.0539°E / 50.0181; 4.0539

Fourmies is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. The inhabitants are called Fourmisiens.

Fourmies is situated in the Euroregion of Thiérache, a region of Northern France and Southern Belgium. It is 50 km (31 mi) from Valenciennes, 100 km (62 mi) from Lille, and 175 km (109 mi) from Paris. The city is surrounded by forests and ponds.

On May 1, 1891, the Fusillade de Fourmies occurred. It was the first French and international celebration of the International Workers' Day on May Day. In Fourmies, troops shot at peaceful strikers: nine died, including 8 demonstrators of under 21 years old, among which a young worker who will remain a symbol, Marie Blondeau. Thirty-five were wounded.

The shooting of the 1st of May in Fourmies caused a sharp emotion in whole France. It is regarded today as one of the founding events of the French Section of the Workers' International. Jean Jaurès went afterwards to Fourmies to make a speech there while George Clemenceau declared in front of the French Parliament that "it is the Fourth state which rose".

Léo Lagrange (28 November 1900, in Bourg (Gironde) – 9 June 1940, in Évergnicourt) was a French Under-Secretary of State for Sports and for the Organisation of Leisure during the Popular Front (1936-1938). A member of the Éclaireurs de France scouting association during his youth, he joined the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO, socialist party) after the split at the Tours party congress in 1920 and wrote articles in Populaire (Popular), the press organ of the SFIO. Elected official appointed in 1932 at the time of the second Coalition of the left, he was then named under-secretary of State in the Popular Front government of Léon Blum. He participated in the organisation of the People's Olympiad in Barcelona, organized to counter the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin which were used as a propaganda instrument of Nazism.

As a child, he was registered with the Éclaireurs de France, a scouting movement which had no religious affiliation. At the end of his studies at the Lycée Henri-IV, in August 1917, he joined the army. On his return, he was registered in the Faculty of Law and at the Institute of political sciences. Shortly after the Tours Congress (December 1920), he joined the SFIO, directed by Paul Faure, Jean Longuet and Léon Blum and joined the Socialist students' organisation.