Dickens character to steal the French body armour (8)
I believe the answer is:
nickleby
'dickens character' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'steal the french body armour' is the wordplay.
'steal' becomes 'nick' (nick can informally mean to steal).
'the french' becomes 'le' ('the' in French).
'body' means to remove the middle letters (I've seen 'body of' mean this (body can mean something's frame or exterior)).
'armour' becomes 'body armour' (body armour is a kind of armour).
'body' with its middle removed is 'by'.
'nick'+'le'+'by'='NICKLEBY'
'to' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for nickleby that I've seen before include "See 1" , "Dickens novel 'Nicolas ........'" , "Dickens character" , "Dickens book ` `Nicholas ........' '" .)