Do nothing initially that would involve extremely deluded French article (7)
I believe the answer is:
twiddle
'do nothing' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'initially that would involve extremely deluded french article' is the wordplay.
'initially' suggests taking the first letters.
'extremely' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters) (only the extremes of the word are used).
'french article' becomes 'le' (definite article in French).
'deluded' with its centre removed is 'dd'.
The first letters of 'that would involve' is 'twi'.
'twi'+'dd'+'le'='TWIDDLE'
(Other definitions for twiddle that I've seen before include "Idly rotate (one's thumbs?)" , "Tinker with" , "Turn in a purposeless way" , "Manipulate (one's thumbs)" , "Play idly (with something)" .)