A paralyzed Frenchman took his first steps in 10 years after a revolutionary operation to restore nerve functions using a microchip implant, newspapers reported on Sunday. Marc Merger, 39, who was paralyzed in a car accident, received the implant in February during a ground-breaking operation that doctors said gave new hope to thousands of paraplegics. “An extraordinary emotion. Suddenly, we were not teaching a paraplegic to cope with a wheelchair, but to walk,” Merger, 39, was quoted as saying in French regional daily L’Alsace.