Border row? French willing to be above that (8)
I believe the answer is:
frontier
'border' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'row? french willing to be above that' is the wordplay.
'row?' becomes 'tier' (tier is a kind of row).
'french' becomes 'fr'.
'willing' becomes 'on' (I've seen this in other clues).
'to be above that' means one lot of letters go next to another (in a down clue, some letters go above others).
'fr'+'on'='fron'
'tier' after 'fron' is 'FRONTIER'.
(Other definitions for frontier that I've seen before include "Verge" , "wild area" , "International boundary" , "Marches" , "Land-border of a country" .)