The Prix Liberté is an educational project to raise awareness of freedom, peace and human rights, rooted in the values of the Normandy Landings of 6 June 1944. Each year, the Prix Liberté invites young people aged 15 to 25 in France and around the world to nominate a person or organisation engaged in an exemplary fight for freedom. Offered by the Normandy Region and implemented by the International Institute for Human Rights and Peace, in close partnership with the Normandy Academic Authorities and the Canopé network, the Prix Liberté is a tribute to all those who have fought and continue to fight for this ideal.
As part of the 2025 voting phase, events bringing together several hundred young people are being organised across France and in other countries. These events represent a double opportunity for young people: to meet a main witness who embodies a fight for rights and freedoms, and to discover the struggles of the three nominees for the Prix Liberté and vote to determine the 2025 winner.
On 25 March 2025, the main witness to the vote in Alençon was cartoonist Wimar, a member of the Cartooning for Peace network.
He created and directed Cuba’s first independent graphic satire publication, xel2, in collaboration with the independent Cuban media el Toque. Through his editorial cartoons and humour, he has sought to provoke debate on social and political realities. He has regularly collaborated as a cartoonist and illustrator with several independent Cuban media and projects linked to communication and the fight for democracy in his country. Because of his artistic work associated with journalism and the independent media in Cuba, he has been the victim of political persecution and threatened with ten years in prison. Now a political refugee in France, he continues to collaborate with Cuban media and to produce works on his new condition as an artist in exile and on current international events.
The meeting ended with a cartoon by Wimar based on the young people’s ideas for symbols of freedom: broken handcuffs, a pencil, a Phrygian cap, a statue of liberty, a dove, a French flag and a megaphone.
