Papegnies has won several prizes, notably the Special Jury Prize at the Scoop and Journalism Festival of Angers and the Belfius Prize in 2010, the Nikon Press Photo Award (NPPA) in 2011, and the Journalism Prize from the Walloon-Brussels Parliament in 2012 for his work ‘Fous d’Amour’.
He has received grants from the "Fund for Journalism" to carry out a work on love and Intellectual disability in Belgium, Christianity in Lebanon, and the Koglweogo, a self-defence group in Burkina Faso.