A Parisian holds a violent contest in the dark (7)
I believe the answer is:
unaware
'in the dark' is the definition.
(I've seen this in another clue)
'a parisian holds a violent contest' is the wordplay.
'a parisian' becomes 'une' ('a' in French).
'holds' indicates putting letters inside.
'violent contest' becomes 'war' (military contest. I am not sure about the 'violent' bit.).
'a'+'war'='awar'
'une' enclosing 'awar' is 'UNAWARE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for unaware that I've seen before include "Not congnisant (of)" , "Not knowing (of a situation or fact)" , "Unwitting, not knowing" , "Oblivious to, not knowing" , "Not having knowledge or realisation" .)