American leave, one taken in an Eastern French region (9)
I believe the answer is:
aquitaine
'french region' is the definition.
(Aquitaine is an example)
'american leave one taken in an eastern' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'american' could be 'a' (common abbreviation - e.g. in organisation names) and 'a' is found within the answer.
'leave' could be 'quit' (quitting is a kind of leaving) and 'quit' is found in the answer.
'one' could be 'i' (Roman numeral) and 'i' is located in the answer.
'an' could be 'a' and 'a' is located in the answer.
'eastern' could be 'e' and 'e' is found within the answer.
A single letter 'n' remains which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for aquitaine that I've seen before include "part of France" , "historical region of France" , "somewhere in France" , "Region in SW France" , "French region" .)