Les Tours des Hauts de France - St Quentin

Les échecs pour réussir, from town to countryside

The project “Les échecs pour réussir : de la campagne à la ville” began in 2018. At the school in Clastres, it meant regular classroom instruction during school hours in 2021.

Saint-Quentin’s 2022 Cités éducatives program then included an action under the same name, linking regular chess practice with citizenship and educational progress.

The work was still visible in the 2024-2025 school year, when the club taught in public and private schools across Saint-Quentin and the surrounding area. The THF reported reaching about 1,000 young people during that period, a measure of the program’s school footprint rather than the club’s membership.

Two routes to the top flight

In June 2024, the THF women’s team finished first in Paris in Nationale 1 Féminine and qualified for the 2025 Top 12. It then appeared among the twelve entrants in a competition bringing together France’s leading women’s clubs.

That promotion gives the women’s program a distinct place in the club’s competitive story.

A year later, the first team won all seven matches in Nationale 1 Group A and moved up to the Top 16. At the time, that division stood at the summit of the national club pyramid.

The two promotions, one in the women’s structure and one in the open structure, brought separate branches of the same club to the national top tier.

Two recurring events in city venues

The club organized the first Saint-Quentin International Open, the Mémorial Aloyzas Kveinys, at the Palais de Fervaques in July 2019. The FFE recorded a seventh edition at the same venue in July 2026.

The progression from a first to a seventh edition made the tournament a durable part of the THF’s public presence in the city.

A second series developed at the Musée des Beaux-Arts Antoine Lécuyer. The city documented an agreement for a club simultaneous there in February 2022, and the THF described the 2026 event as the fifth edition.

The museum gives the club a recurring cultural setting separate from ordinary club play and the Mémorial Aloyzas Kveinys.