Following Frenchmen in France he gets covered in earth with a sticky feel (8)
I believe the answer is:
clammily
'a sticky feel' is the definition.
The definition and answer are not the same part of speech.
'following frenchmen in france he gets covered in earth' is the wordplay.
'following' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'frenchmen' becomes 'MM' (two M's - M is short for Monsieur).
'in france he' becomes 'il' ('he' in French).
'gets covered in' is an insertion indicator.
'earth' becomes 'clay' (clay is a kind of earth).
'mm'+'il' is 'mmil'.
'mmil' placed within 'clay' is 'CLAMMILY'.
'with' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for clammily that I've seen is " In an unpleasantly damp way".)