Clean area on the French ship (8)
I believe the answer is:
spotless
'clean' is the definition.
(similar in meaning)
'area on the french ship' is the wordplay.
'area' becomes 'spot' (spot can mean a location).
'on' says to put letters next to each other.
'the french' becomes 'le' ('the' in French).
'ship' becomes 'SS' (prefix in ship names eg SS Great Britain).
'spot'+'le'+'ss'='SPOTLESS'
(Other definitions for spotless that I've seen before include "free from sin" , "honest!" , "What unsuccessful twitchers do" , "Immaculate" , "Immaculately clean" .)