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Sunday 06 of October 2024

Teen climate activist gets Normandy's first Freedom Prize


AP Photo,Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg takes part in the school strike demonstration Fridays for future in Berlin, Germany, July 19, 2019. (Paul Zinken/dpa via AP)
AP Photo,Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg takes part in the school strike demonstration Fridays for future in Berlin, Germany, July 19, 2019. (Paul Zinken/dpa via AP)

PARIS (AP) — Swedish teen climate change activist Greta Thunberg has received the first Freedom Prize awarded by France’s Normandy region, which last month commemorated the 75th D-Day anniversary.

Thunberg, 16, received the award in Caen on Sunday, posing alongside D-Day veterans Charles Norman Shay and Léon Gautier.

Thunberg said that “I think the least we can do to honor them is to stop destroying that same world that Charles, Leon and their friends and colleagues fought so hard to save.”

She sent out a warning that “we are currently on track for a world that could displace billions of people from their homes, taking away even the most basic living conditions … making areas of the world uninhabitable for parts of the year.” But she added, “We can still fix this.”