Allied countries in a French article in France, say (7)
I believe the answer is:
anatole
'france say' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer.
'allied countries in a french article' is the wordplay.
'allied countries' becomes 'nato' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'in' indicates putting letters inside.
'french article' becomes 'le' (definite article in French).
'a'+'le'='ale'
'nato' placed inside 'ale' is 'ANATOLE'.
'in' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for anatole that I've seen before include "France possibly" , "- - France, French novelist" , "France perhaps" , "France maybe" , "- France, Fr. writer" .)