  We present the first determination of the Galactic polarized emission at 353
GHz by Archeops. The data were taken during the Arctic night of February 7,
2002 after the balloon--borne instrument was launched by CNES from the Swedish
Esrange base near Kiruna. In addition to the 143 GHz and 217 GHz frequency
bands dedicated to CMB studies, Archeops had one 545 GHz and six 353 GHz
bolometers mounted in three polarization sensitive pairs that were used for
Galactic foreground studies. We present maps of the I, Q, U Stokes parameters
over 17% of the sky and with a 13 arcmin resolution at 353 GHz (850 microns).
They show a significant Galactic large scale polarized emission coherent on the
longitude ranges [100, 120] and [180, 200] deg. with a degree of polarization
at the level of 4-5%, in agreement with expectations from starlight
polarization measurements. Some regions in the Galactic plane (Gem OB1,
Cassiopeia) show an even stronger degree of polarization in the range 10-20%.
Those findings provide strong evidence for a powerful grain alignment mechanism
throughout the interstellar medium and a coherent magnetic field coplanar to
the Galactic plane. This magnetic field pervades even some dense clouds.
Extrapolated to high Galactic latitude, these results indicate that
interstellar dust polarized emission is the major foreground for PLANCK-HFI CMB
polarization measurement.
