Festivities the French talk endlessly about (5)

I believe the answer is:

galas

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'festivities' is the definition.
(I know this)

'french talk endlessly about' is the wordplay.
'french' becomes 'gal' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'talk' becomes 'say' (I've seen this in another clue).
'endlessly' means to remove the last letter.
'about' is a reversal indicator.
'say' with its last letter taken away is 'sa'.
'sa' back-to-front is 'as'.
'gal'+'as'='GALAS'

'the' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Another definition for galas that I've seen is " Bashes".)

I've seen this clue in The Globe and Mail.

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