6 months after Armada Rouen 2023 and for the 3rd time during the same period, the Armada association will once again welcome "Le Français" and its Polar School from 13 to 28 January.

The three-masted schooner will return to the quays of Rouen for the great pleasure of the Rouen public and to continue raising awareness of the need to protect our rivers and oceans.

As a witness to the evolution of the poles and global warming, and to get young people involved in the fight against it, the crew will be inviting several hundred of them - schoolchildren, secondary school pupils and high school students, via their establishments - to take part in Polar School awareness-raising activities on board.

Last year, more than 400 students took part in these workshops.

Open to the public:

The ship will also be open to the public on the weekends of 13/14, 20/21 and 27/28 January. Armada volunteers will be on hand from 10am to 12pm and from 2pm to 5pm.

On the programme: a free visit to the ship and the exhibition on Commander Charcot's wintering in Antarctica in 1904 to discover the beauty and fragility of the poles.

Le Français will leave Saint-Brieuc bound for Rouen on 12 January, subject to weather conditions. It will sail up the Seine and pass under the Flaubert bridge during the night of 12 to 13/01, normally between 3 and 3.30 am (traffic will be neutralised and the Flaubert bridge lifted between 2.30 and 5.30 am), to berth at the Jean Ango Quay of Honour until 28 January.

Built in 1948, Le Français is a 3-masted barque 46.60m long, with a beam of 8.50m. She has a draught of 3.80m and an air draught of 32m. Weighing 460 tonnes, Le Français uses 960m2 of canvas, i.e. 21 sails. Her home port is Saint Malo.