Asian capital with Sikh symbol and spiritual essence of the French (8)
I believe the answer is:
katmandu
'asian capital' is the definition.
'katmandu' can be an answer for 'capital' (Katmandu is an example). I'm not certain of the 'asian' bit.
'with sikh symbol and spiritual essence of the french' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'with' could be 'and' and 'and' is present in the answer.
'symbol' could be 'mu' (mu is a kind of symbol) and 'mu' is located in the remaining letters.
The remaining letters 'kat' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for katmandu that I've seen before include "Capital of Nepal (older spelling)" , "foreign capital" , "Nepalese capital (alt. spelling)" , "Nepal capital (alternative spelling)" , "eastern city" .)