A woman at the French border village (9)
I believe the answer is:
bethlehem
'village' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are singular nouns.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'a woman at the french border' is the wordplay.
'a woman' becomes 'beth' (woman's name).
'at' says to put letters next to each other.
'the french' becomes 'le' ('the' in French).
'border' becomes 'hem' (I've seen this in another clue).
'beth'+'le'+'hem'='BETHLEHEM'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for bethlehem that I've seen before include "Town where Christ was born" , "Middle East town" , "Jesus's birthplace" , "Birthplace of Christ" , "Birthplace of Jesus" .)