Poles in valley uprising and French holding workers in servitude (11)
I believe the answer is:
enslavement
'servitude' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'poles in valley uprising and french holding workers' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'poles' could be 'ns' (North and South poles) and 'ns' is found within the answer.
'and' could be 'n' (common abbreviation for 'and') and 'n' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
'in' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for enslavement that I've seen before include "Loss of freedom in captivity" , "Putting into bondage" , "Joseph was sold into it" , "Complete subjugation" .)