Baltic race taken in by the French (5)

I believe the answer is:

letts

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'baltic' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't judge whether this works.

'race taken in by the french' is the wordplay.
'race' becomes 'tt'.
'taken in by' indicates putting letters inside.
'the french' becomes 'les' (plural form of 'the' in French).
'tt' put within 'les' is 'LETTS'.

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I've seen this clue in the Evening Standard.

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