Greta Thunberg, winner of the first Freedom Prize 

Greta Thunberg received 41.67% of the vote, Raif Badawi, the 35-year-old Saudi blogger, received 37.21% and Lu Guang, the 58-year-old Chinese photojournalist, received 19.68% of the vote (1.44% blank votes). The award ceremony will be held on 21 July 2019 in the Abbaye-aux-Dames in Caen,

Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish secondary school pupil, rose to prominence for her fight against the inaction of the heads of state and the government and the lack of awareness regarding the climate emergency. She misses school every Friday to protest in front of the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm. Greta Thunberg spoke at COP24 in December 2018 in Katowice (Poland) and the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland) in early 2019.

Greta will receive a cheque for €25,000 and a trophy created by the final-year applied arts class, specialising in cabinet-making, at the Lycée Augustin Boismard de Brionne in the Eure department.

“I am very grateful for this tremendous honour. The other finalists are ardent defenders of human rights. We must constantly remember the sacrifices they have made. Lu Guang and Raif Badawi are heroes of our time. Not only does the climate crisis threaten the lives of billions of people, it also threatens civilisation as a whole. And it is the people who are least responsible for it who are paying the highest price. 
I have decided to donate the entire prize to four organisations committed to climate justice: 
- CARE – which helps women and girls in southern countries to fight the effects of rising temperatures and climate change.
- The Adaptation Fund – which helps vulnerable communities in developing countries to adapt to and fight climate change. Just like 350.org and Greenpeace International, both of which are fighting for climate justice and the environment and against the extraction of fossil fuels.”
Greta Thunberg

First edition of the Freedom Prize

The Freedom Prize gives young people aged 15 to 25 from all over the world the opportunity to choose an exemplary public figure or an organisation, committed to the fight for freedom. For this first award, an international panel of judges, led by the newspaper cartoonist YAK(*), chose three finalists, Raif Badawi, Lu Guang and Greta Thunberg from more than a hundred nominations received from all over France and around the world.

The Freedom Prize is an educational scheme created by the Normandy Region, in partnership with the International Institute of Human Rights and Peace, academic authorities, Canopé and Ouest-France.

On June 5, 2019 as part of the Normandy World Peace Forum and the events for the 75th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy, which will be attended by veterans, a ceremony dedicated to the Freedom Prize was held. Greta Thunberg had sent a video message to address the young people present that day.

(*)YAK, alias Yacine Ait Kaci. His character Elyx became the first virtual ambassador to the United Nations in 2015.