Nikol Pashinyan’s March to Power

A 2018 assignment for Le Monde, the velvet revolution in Armenia

On March 31, 2018, Nikol Pashinyan, 42, a prominent Armenian journalist and former political prisoner, started a march across Armenia, a former Soviet republic in the South Caucasus, to protest against the president Serzh Sargsyan’s effort to skirt term limits.

Within weeks, Pashinyan created a massive civil disobedience movement around him that exploded the country’s political landscape and brought Pashinyan the post of the prime-minister through a completely non-violent struggle.